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

akshaye

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Hi Guys,
I have recently downloaded the songs in DTS format and listened them on hometheatre system. And I am shocked that from that day, I am not at all liking mp3 or stereo audio music.. The music which comes from the surround speaker is so much in details and crisp, that you can not here it only on stereo system!

I really want your opinions on this..as I am the only one who has this opinion or there are some guys who agreed with me in this forum.

I really think that there is no compairison in stero music and DTS music as DTS is far ahead than the stereo for its unbeatable clarity..what you guys think?
 
Any Multi channel audio will sound better than stereo, I think. You get much better soudn stage with the channels intermeshing with each other.

You also have the case that DTS woudl be using hihger sampling rates than MP3. Thus better quality.

A small sound quality 101 :

1. MP3 has lossy compression, and thus render music whihc is great but also looses some quality to save space.
2. CD uses 44.1 KHz sampling which is great for stereo.
3. SACD, used something like 60 times more sampling thus the captures truer sound. And can do this in upto 5.1 channels.
4. DTS, DVD-Audio etc use the same multichannel technology but lower sampling rates.
5. The new boys in the crowd are DTS-Master Audio (MA) and Dolby True HD. Both offer the same uncompressed original cinema tracks without loss or alteration.

Overall, if you have a thing for sound , look at these multichannel encoded tracks for nirvana !

Personally I love SACD and have collected them where possible. These are not "rippable" and need SACD compatible player (e.g. PS3 or a hihger end DVD player). Same applies to DVD-Audio.

regards
 
How did you play the .dts files in a dvd player

The files which I had downloaded had .wave extension. So I burn these files on Nero as audio cd. I had read somewhere for .dts files you need rename it to .wave and burn them as audio cd.

So it can help I guess.

Enjoy
 
Any Multi channel audio will sound better than stereo, I think. You get much better soudn stage with the channels intermeshing with each other.

You also have the case that DTS woudl be using hihger sampling rates than MP3. Thus better quality.

A small sound quality 101 :

1. MP3 has lossy compression, and thus render music whihc is great but also looses some quality to save space.
2. CD uses 44.1 KHz sampling which is great for stereo.
3. SACD, used something like 60 times more sampling thus the captures truer sound. And can do this in upto 5.1 channels.
4. DTS, DVD-Audio etc use the same multichannel technology but lower sampling rates.
5. The new boys in the crowd are DTS-Master Audio (MA) and Dolby True HD. Both offer the same uncompressed original cinema tracks without loss or alteration.

Overall, if you have a thing for sound , look at these multichannel encoded tracks for nirvana !

Personally I love SACD and have collected them where possible. These are not "rippable" and need SACD compatible player (e.g. PS3 or a hihger end DVD player). Same applies to DVD-Audio.

regards

I have not heard SACD, I have to give a lsiten to them..but whatever DTS music rocks..:)
 
I think the sound stage given by multichannel will be good.But it will be good if ur speakers and amp is entry level.But good stereo itself give good sound stage.Also some type of music like jazz or live sounds better in stereo.It is a debatable subject:(
 
I have a couple of tracks in multi-channel format, and I have to say they sound great.

vkiran has provided a good explanation. Its very simple, these formats have so much more data to play than the 3 decade old red book format offering 44100 samples of 32768 varying intensities.

Having said that, there is no dearth of old fashioned stereo-heads who would swear by stereo on purely religious grounds. Yes, its one of those never-ending debates.
 
I think the sound stage given by multichannel will be good.But it will be good if ur speakers and amp is entry level.

:confused: It will not be good with costly multichannel systems?

But good stereo itself give good sound stage.

Disagree. To match the soundstage presented by a 100k multichannel system, you will need to spend 500k on a 2-channel system, and still I doubt it will be a match.

It is a debatable subject:(

Agree.
 
would like to know howmuch of music is available recorded in multi-channel format?

if you listen to say for eg a lot of music from the 90s, then was it originally recorded (when the artist/band cut the album) in multiple channels or in stereo? if it was recorded in stereo, is there is a technology to to convert the recording into multi channel ? (like how black-n-white movies are now convertable into colour)

if the answer to above question is yes then it really makes the case for DTS audio very strong now... untill then, its stereo.

also in my personal opinion, music sound is not so technical as movies sound since the objective of music sound is not to create effects (like head-on collision, glass crashing, etc). besides all these movie sounds are only support systems to visuals and create a real life experience when they come from different directions. but the directions again are dependent on and have to harmonize with whats in the visual.

however in case of music, the sound... and not just some sound... a sound in a melody / rhythm is the main thing. it is the musical rhythm that appeals to us first, not the quality of sound or the no of channels from which the sound is coming. if u don't like a song, u will not like it even in DTS format. and if u love a song, then u will tap ur feet to the tune coming out from a basic mono radio as well. however hi-fi sound of ur fav song will greatly heighten ur listening pleasure and give u a feeling that the song is being played live in front of u..... or the song is actually talking to you.... which are extremely important in enjoying the song; but u will get that feeling only if u like the song!

so in the above perspective, as far as pure music is concerned, wonder whether in DTS audio will a song be able to really talk to you like how it does thru hi-end stereo systems right now... or will DTS audio just throw sounds at you from different directions... and if the sounds are not musically harmonious, wonder if they all together, each from different channel, be jointly able to create that thing we enjoy - music!

haven't heard DTS audio, nor have heard SACD. but am a musician and can understand that well..

so the point is still debatable and others who have heard DTS audio can share there experiences.....
 
Good post there and a valid point being made, the availability of multitrack media!

Soon all media would be available for download in HD format (could be DVD-A, SACD or whatever). All digital. No messy discs involved. Play through a network or store locally on a SAN.

Anyway, thats a different story. I believe availability of multitrack media doesn't take anything away from the fact that they do sound fabulous.
 
ranjeetrain you forgot the basics.vilfy is highlighting that point.

In movie MC makes sense.Movie means sound from different direction make sense and enchances the experience.

Would you like to hear a jazz with percussion heard from you back? In live show do you prefer sound from back?
Only movie songs makes some sense to me.
More data means more perfect reproduction agreed but does means that matchs the orginal source.

Our culture has carried music as stereo(or say 3.1,3.1 existed for long while).We won't listen to music my sitting in center of a hall with every body playing around you.

In case of entry level MC.It enhances the stage.Place your rear speakers of an entry level AVR at 15-20 degrees from you at front and hear in PLII.You get a better sound stage.Even when the speakers are in rear it gaves a encapsulating effect.This is the point I am try to put.

Right now I am thinking like tat.I am not agaist change but it should make sense.May be in future if it makes sense I will move towards MC.(I may want all the players to surrond me and make sound from 21.4 channels one bit here and one there)
 
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MM, the basics as you put will not be same for everyone. To you it makes sense to listen to all songs in 2C with all sound coming from front. To me, it may mean I would like to be in the middle of the concert hall. Or I would like to feel the reverb exactly the way it was had I been there at the recording venue.

One more point. When you say MC, it doesn't mean all DTS tracks must contain all channel information. Depending on the recording requirements, some channels may contain data, some may not.

Like you, I and everyone else agrees, its a debatable topic. So you cannot pass a judgement on 2C being better than MC or vice versa.

But as a matter of fact, MC is technically far superior, sounds a lot better and is capable of reproducing the recording alive with a much better precision. Rest the debate can go on and on various fronts such as availability of media, precision of recording, artifacts in surround processing blah blah blah.
 
What I feel is even if its 2 channel DVD audio will be far superior coz its at 24bit, 192 khz where as our normal audio cds are 16bit 44khz. Like in movies the most hard working speakers is the centre channel. Maybe in multi channel audio, most of it would be through front speakers, sub and centre. And for some effects where it?s required the surround would come to use.
But even if this multi channel audio is heard in a stereo format it would sound better due to the better sampling rate
 
What I feel is even if its 2 channel DVD audio will be far superior coz its at 24bit, 192 khz where as our normal audio cds are 16bit 44khz. Like in movies the most hard working speakers is the centre channel. Maybe in multi channel audio, most of it would be through front speakers, sub and centre. And for some effects where it?s required the surround would come to use.
But even if this multi channel audio is heard in a stereo format it would sound better due to the better sampling rate

Bang on. MC or HD audio critics should at least hear these formats once. The differences are such startling, if one cannot hear it, doesn't need a hifi :D
 
Rikhav, how about 4 to 7 mbps, 48khz DTS-HD MA [though it can carry upto 24 mbps none of the movies / music videos I've seen exceeded 7mbps]? I know, many members has access to DTS MA channel [vinay/vkiran/vivek etc]

What I feel is even if its 2 channel DVD audio will be far superior coz its at 24bit, 192 khz where as our normal audio cds are 16bit 44khz.


Agreed :D
Maybe in multi channel audio, most of it would be through front speakers, sub and centre. And for some effects where it’s required the surround would come to use.
 
I've some funds allocated every month to spend on AV Gear from my OH [as I don't drink/smoke etc..] :)

Bluray
a. Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds: Live at Radio City : True HD
b. Celine Dion: A New Day? Live in Las Vegas : True HD
c. Shakira - Oral Fixation - LPCM @ 1.5mbps
d. Destiny child - live in atlanta LPCM
e. Queen Rocks Montreal - LPCM

HD DVD
a. Nine Inch Nails Live: Beside You in Time True HD
b. Eagles Farewell Tour I LPCM

Most of the blurays passed thru my hands, but keep only the refrence quality ones.
 
:)
Impressed

I am more into EDM. So maybe i will do the same like you do and get blue-ray discs of huge trance festivals happening all over Europe
 
Now PS3 decodes DTS-HD MA onboard, so if you have a AVR that can accept LPCM over HDMI, you should be fine.

.....and the bonus is a gaming console :p

:)
Impressed

I am more into EDM. So maybe i will do the same like you do and get blue-ray discs of huge trance festivals happening all over Europe
 
SACDs and DVD-Audios ! The dynamics improvement because the SACD can use high bitrate audio which naturally allows for more headroom.A normal CD is also limited to a certain frequency range that corresponds to the frequencies we humans can actually hear.
In SACD frequency range over 20khz.Why we need this ?, especially when most humans can barely hear anything up to 18khz... some says that since real instruments produce frequencies well over 20khz, this would be more true to the source and also humans could percept those frequencies, just not hear them (much like very low bass, which is another story).

This doesn't really make any sense to me.
Mostof the CD's today do not even extend to the limitation of the media. Modern recordings are shitty and don't even need the CD quality and additional dynamic headroom because, well, they're compressed to anyways.
Technically, SACDs and DVD-As use 24bit/96khz. Imagine the 96khz to be the resolution of the signal. By theory, you need double the amount khz of the signal to reproduce. let's say your music can go up to 20khz in frequency. You would need at least 40khz resolution to reproduce the tone properly. The CD has a resolution of 44.1khz and this is sufficient.
24bit defines the dynamic range or just the amount of free headroom that is available to a signal. Everything is recorded to 24 bit today. So this is one advantage over the CD, which is 16bit because the "downsampling" to 16bit might have influence on the sound. This is not in any way proven and should not be substantial. But, technically, it is possible to record something that actually uses the whole 16bit of dynamics of the CD. In fact, when recording this happens a lot. Then again, once recorded the signal is predictable and can fit easily on a CD. Let's just say the difference is marginal.

(ref :Speakerguide - SH/SC Wiki)
 
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