@ Sdurani
I wanted to shed some light on the process of sound track mixing and reproducing it.
As u might be aware of the fact that there are 2 types of mixes for a movie soundtrack namely "discrete" and "matrix"
What you read on the BD discs is discrete 7.1 , which means With discrete surround sound, the transmission medium allows for the same number of channels of source and destination ie one-to-one, channel-to-speaker, but it does not mean that all these discrete channels are not related to each other in some way. 2 discrete audio channels are cable of holding 2 more matrix-ed channels on them and if these 2 discrete audio channels are fed into a matrix decoder the these can be split-ed up into 4 channels.
This is how the height channels are encoded in both front LR and the Surround LR channels
Now lets talk about why this is not listed on Bluray discs , I have around 30 to 40 Audio Cds from the late 90's which are in Punjabi, Hindi and English . These Disc's have a stereo logo printed on them , but when you play them thru a dolby prologic decoder you get a very nice surround audio with just the background effects , chorus etc and no vocals in the surround , the question now is that how is this possible ? There should be a dolby prologic logo on them ,, See this has something to do with how the sound material is recorded , processed and then encoded . A majority of people lets say more than 80 percent like to listen to music in just plain stereo LR , there are very expensive stereo pre amps and stereo amps available up to the audiophile grade just to maintain max channel separation and pure music.When a stereo CD is played through these expensive systems the surround elements are still there but they are placed in front of the listener and not behind. This is my point, there are sound elements in both music and movie sound tracks which are always there but when these are extracted and placed at respective positions the scenario changes , its a totally different thing .
The height channels rely upon these certain kind of sound elements which are either naturally distinct or have been produced by altering their phase and have been processed using complex mathematical algorithms which give these sound elements some thing called sound fields. These sound fields are also known as spacious cues. These sound elements or images when are played back through conventional 5.1 or 7.1 surround systems are reproduced in a horizontal plane by the front LR and the surround LR, Now lets not forget something out here that all 5.1 6.1 and 7.1 sound systems are 2d planar or just 360 degree sound systems , they just have 2 axis the x axis and the y axis , the depth is always lacking which is the z -axis and hence they don't sound like they should.
If a person goes out and stands in an open space, the sounds that reach his ears are not from a planar source(s) its actually a 3D sound sphere around that persons head which may include both direct sounds and reflected sounds.And then comes the human brain which does a lot of math to perceive these sounds in a certain fashion , when sound encoding is done all this is kept in mind the HRTF stuff and physics of sound and i just don't want to go that deep.
Now if certain sound elements are identified , decoded and mapped to front height channels and the rear height channels the sound stage no longer remains 2d it changes to cubic or a sphere inside this cube and trust me this changes a lot
you stated that ""BTW, if you're already hearing sounds above you, then that doesn't really bolster the case for height speakers, does it? "
yes it bolsters the case by a nice magnitude in my case (if 5.1 sounds better than tv speakers and if lord of the rings sound better with the discrete back surround and if 7.1 sounds better than the 6.1 then obviously 11.2 sounds better and hopefully the future 22.2 even more exciting).
it sounds
more spacious
more enveloping
more depth
Try to get a demo of the movie "Signs" or "LOTR" or "Gladiator" on a z11 or 3067
