DTS audio music (5.1 channel) is better or CD Audio (Stereo Audio) music?

i have half a dozens of dts audio cds. what i feel is, its just as same as stereo while hearing dts.. except in few occations where the format can produce a sonic sound stage. And sure the fidelity level of dts disc is far more better than that of stereo but fidelity is not the only factor to produce a enjoying music.

Hi,

Yes you are right buddy ! even I have more a dozen cds but rarely play them !

Only a handful of them can actually immerse you in the sound field rest all just a name sake stuff with no actual surround ( just a plain 5 channel stereo)

And yes I do agree with you again that more then fidelity there's more to music ! otherwise most the Audiophile labels producing pure 2 ch cd's would've ceased to do so and would've made dts discs instead !

Regards.

Interesting discussion. Let me add my 2 cents.

For years I have been listening to music on my PC i.e. the standard mp3s at 192 to 384 kbps which are considered good quality at least in mp3 terms. Ditto for audio CDs and also tapes. Most of this listening was done on Creative 5.1 speakers connected to my PC. I was in the market for new speakers when a friend suggested I look at going the HT way instead of PC speakers. I decided to take the plunge and invested in Onkyo HT3100 at under 20K and the sound just blew me away when watching movies on DVD and DivX.

I have since started listening to music on the HT and to tell you the truth they rock on the HT and sound way better than they ever did on the 5.1 Creative on the PC. I have now started listening to music on DTS 5.1 and to tell you the truth they just blow you away. There is no way you can compare DTS 5.1 to anything else (at least per my ears). Not audio CD, tape or mp3s with high bit rates. Surround sound in 5.1 may not be music to everyone's ears and some might prefer it in 2 channel, but not me. After having experienced music in 5.1 DTS there is no way I want to go back to 2 channel. Also I have to state that even 2 channel mp3s rock on the HT system. Guess there is no comparision between a HT system and a PC speaker system. But to my ears at least 5.1 DTS absolutely rocks!

When done rightly 5.1 music sounds great. I think the 5.1 mixing plays a major part when it comes to enjoying 5.1 music. Some of the Yash Raj films like Dhoom-2 which had 5.1 DVD-Audio release were disappointing. But some of A.R Rahman's Tamil 5.1 DTS Audio CDs had superb 5.1 mix. One of the best 5.1 mix that I have heard till date is Sting's Brand New Day DTS CD.

Due to the way the music tones are present, its very hard to mix it in more than 2 channels (even sub is very hard). The best music experience is stereo unless you are speaking about SACD and DVD-A, even then it has to be properly mixed otherwise you will feel out of phase very quickly and will not enjoy it one bit.

Thats why the original Alan Parsons project for Floyd DSOTM was mixed in 4 channels and he was against the 5 channel mix later put out since the frequencies did not sit right. So, thats the holy grail of multi channel music.


Movies are very forgiving since they shoot different freq in diff channels (planes flying (SL/SR) while a bunch of guys screaming (C) + shooting (L/R)

With the kind of recording and mastering we get on modern albums, I think the formats are irrelevant. When commercial pressures lead to over-compression and resulting distortion on a great album like Mark Knopfler's last, it's time for me to go back to my older CDs.

I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times a great piece of music has appeared with a great recording in the last decade.

And still have a finger spare.

The good thing about SACD and DVD-A is that a little more attention is paid (hopefully) to the mastering and they don't compress the living daylights out of everything on the disc. That apart, since most recordings are made in pure stereo they're best listened to in stereo.

Good stereo recordings will capture phase information and be able to locate performers and ambience information correctly, and a good phase-accurate stereo system will be able to replay it correctly. If the recording itself is made in multiple channels, it is easier to mix in multiple channels and hard to mix down to stereo. Old-timers will tell you that mixing for radio was tough, because radio was mono and a lot of out-of-phase information would be lost when mixing down to mono, murdering the song. We're basically at the same place again, where radio is stereo and music is beginning to step into multi-channel.

Whereas I agree that in general high resolution is necessarily better than low resolution, it doesn't help if the guy taking the picture (recording the sound) is murdering it before giving it to you. Then all the theory and logic can go out of the window. The scientific discussion on frequencies is nice. But one must keep in mind that the implementation has a lot more to do with the final sound of the system than the specification. My motherboard's onboard 192KHz-capable onboard is shown a clean pair of heels by my outboard USB PCM2706 DAC, and that is not even a high-end solution, being capable only of 16/44.1 or 16/48.

This is not entirely right! I can quote more than 20 recordings that have come out in the past 2 years that are excellent, but again I listen to a very broad genre of music.

Coldplay - Rush of Blood or Parachutes
Remember Shakti - Zakir, John McLaughlin and others
Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms (remastered version)
Norah Jones - Come Away With Me
Brazilian Bossa - Brazilian Bossa
Pink Floyd - DSOTM
Dave Brubek - Time Out
Patricia barber - Modern Cool


its not so much the commercial pressures, rather the willingness of people to buy crappy music that has downgraded the quality. This is one of the reasons that I am not in the "iPod or mp3 changed the world for good" camp. It made is more accessible at a great loss of quality.

Comparitively CDs are still the best source for music and I tend to invest in them a fair bit.

A lot of attention is paid to the high rez recordings. But again the remastering takes a lot of effort and hence you pay a premium for these things. I have a bunch of originals as well as the high res versions and I am still torn between these two, which is a good thing and is a testament to the remastering efforts. But like you said, the engineer should have done a good job.

Absolutely agree!

Thy shall always swear by 2 channels for music anyday

To be or not to Be is the question.
Thou shall pronounce on us that we are retrenched and condemned to the owes of binocular hearing
But to remain indifferent to revolutions seems a virtue
We have seen more than once the format wars and let down by our brothers in arms
The propaganda of ‘the perfect sound’ and a free ticket to piracy
I choose to be loyal to the camps that advocate that less is sometimes more

Guys who have the 5.1 and the stereo version of the same album try listening to both. 5.1 definitely has more gimmickry and showoff value but which do you think is more honest to the music and offers better listenability? Try listening to the entire album in 5.1 and then in stereo.
In multi channel the mind is more focused in the distance and direction of sound rather than depth, location and timbre which is so essential to enjoy a music session

Ya I know I am on the minority side as it is so much evident when ever I type something on forums, converse with people and walk into any audio showroom but maybe its written deep down in my DNA that I will be a stereoholic. Ya maybe people like me do not embrace change but why accept it when something deep within you says the change is not a healthy one, you have fought back saying ‘I just cant be bogged down by old technology’ and sincerely give it a try only to find that the voice was correct in the first place

As far as I know, most Beatles numbers were recorded using 4 independent mikes, and stored in separate tapes. CDs and tapes were cut by mixing these four tapes into stereo format. Similarly, many Western Classical recordings were done this way.

So if some one does takes the effort, these can be re-mixed very well for 5.1.

I am sure many of you will not agree with me, But there is certain charm to 5.1 music. If you take the case of Sivamani, he is surrounded by drums all around. How would it be if you can feel you are Sivamani and hear the drums all around you, at least 270 degrees?

On a stage, the singers and musicians are all placed to face the audience. But that need not be the case in a studio. You can record in such a way that the audience feels they are sitting inside the stage amongst all the players.

For most of us, good music is only Stereo played well with precise positioning and timbre. I am also a staunch believer of this. But I also keep my mind open and I am ready to hear 5.1 music whenever I get the chance. When I am auditioning equipment, what impresses me most is the capacity of the system to create a holographic image of the voice and instrument. I am sure a 5.1 system can do this easily.

Cheers

@Marsilians: Just to expand on what you said, here are the album release dates for your reference.

2002 2000
1999
2000. the original sounds far better to me, and that was 1985
This recording is very badly clipped. Anyway it was released in 2003.
1992
1973
1959
1998

All of them are older than two years. Only one of the ones after 1998 (Shakti) is totally free from clipping and compression. The difference between the Dire Straits original and the remasters is startling - I prefer the originals for most listening (I have both for a number of albums/songs). Kind of prophetic: Vertigo reissued the original recording in 2006.

Come Away With me is an example of very good music served badly, as the album clips noticeably on at least three songs. The Blue Note 2-disc reissue is better, only one clip point.