Bomarc, i think your negative experience has more to do with the fact that you probably invested alot of time and money into a fine sounding 2channel system and feel threatend by a 'low-end' (i hate that term) multi channel setup that had certain qualities you don't have at home. It's only natural to dismiss something new or inexpensive as being bad, but listening experiences are subjective. Keep an open mind, and don't let your audiophilia nervosa get in the way of a good time. Multi channel music and movies has lots to offer!
Is 5.1 Really This Bad?
I've not paid much attention to multichannel, because I'm not much of a vidiot and because two speakers is all I'm likely to get (or so I've been told). But I was in a (low-end) store with a nice comfy surround-sound room today, and sat down to watch a few minutes of what I gather was The Phanton Menace. There were plenty of sound effects going on all around me, but I noticed that they had very little to do with what was going on on the screen. Even when they did, there were obvious discontinuities: A vehicle would drive off the screen to the right, and its sound would seem to disppear, then reappear in the right speaker.
Needless to say, I was less than impressed. Is this wretchedness typical of what one hears on a movie soundtrack in a home theater? Does 5.1 require a sort of suspension of disbelief, where we teach ourselves to ignore the discontinuities because the whole thing sounds cool? Or is this just a particularly bad DVD?
Speaker setup appeared questionable: The fronts were place well wide of a very wide screen, and one of the rears was partially obscured by an overstuffed leather chair.
I'd be the first to concede the inherent limitations of two-channel reproduction. But after this experience, I'm feeling rather better about those limitations.
Needless to say, I was less than impressed. Is this wretchedness typical of what one hears on a movie soundtrack in a home theater? Does 5.1 require a sort of suspension of disbelief, where we teach ourselves to ignore the discontinuities because the whole thing sounds cool? Or is this just a particularly bad DVD?
Speaker setup appeared questionable: The fronts were place well wide of a very wide screen, and one of the rears was partially obscured by an overstuffed leather chair.
I'd be the first to concede the inherent limitations of two-channel reproduction. But after this experience, I'm feeling rather better about those limitations.