Pick your poison...2-channel or multi?

When you go to a concert is the music playing from all directions or from in front of you? I realize that you have sound waves bouncing off walls in a concert hall but, I have walls in my room for the waves to bounce off too. I can see having some of the crowd noise and such in a live recording coming from the rear but, that's it.

I try to make my system sound as close to live music as possible on the budget I have.

I vote 2 channel.

Philnyc - I have to disagree with you on one minor detail. IMHO, Mediocre MC systems have now become just as good as "High Quality" 2-channels systems. High end MC systems are on the same playing field as High end 2-channel, when kept within the equal budget limitations. Of course, if you exceed the budget of even $14k, or a $30k high end budget for that matter, I'm more than sure you could assemble a system that would rival a MC system within the same budget perameters. I'm beginning to realise that there are many recordings, especially those of a grand scale, that are recorded originally in MC. This is where the most if not all of your delays and room/location ambience comes from. However, most mixes are done in 2-channel. It's restructured to fit in 2 channels, but that doesn't mean it was originally ment or intended to be there. Your not gonna find a recording done with only 2 mics, one on the left and one on the right. But instead of hearing it in it's proper perspective, it's held to the front soundstage. More and more mixes are done in MC now. They may not be released in MC, but they are mixed.

I'm starting to see that most audiophiles think rear channals are only intended for movie effects. IMHO, this is quite the contrary. So much information is compressed to the front soundstage in 2 channel. Imagine, for a moment if you will, you have orchestra seating at the Myerhoph Symphany or take someones experience of Jimi Hendrix at '69 Woodstock, and compressing it to 2 speakers in front of you. I mentioned that some scenario to a audiophile friend of mine...his response was "That's (2-channel) was the way it's supposed to be." Try telling that to someone who was there to see Hendrix live!!! It's tolerable if your in an auditorium or in a stadium, but if your in you 17x25ft living room, how can it accurate reproduce your experience with speakers? It can't compare. But if you can take all the benifits of 2 channel...accuracy, imaging, etc., and reproduce that live feel??!! No, your not back at the original performance, but certainly won't get there with 2 channel either.

By no means am I a 2 channel basher or anti-audiophile belief system, but so many audiophiles have been closed minded to MC...by choice. There are great times to be had in MC, but we're too scared to break the mold. Not because our ears may tell us something different, but because "I won't have Conrad Johnson's or Wilson's in my system" or "I won't be able to say I have an all tube system."

If that's how you choose to listen to music, then by all means enjoy. There's just more to the material than you think. Once MC sound reproduction becomes produced, setup, configured, and marketed more effectively, 2 channel may become a thing of the past. The average consumer just hasn't experienced MC the way it was originally intended...with the same effort and energy as 2 channel.

No doubt - 2 Channel. It would have been the other way around not too long ago.

If the budgets were the same, I would go 2-channel. A high quality 2-channel system IMHO would be more enjoyable than a not-as-high-quality multi-channel system. Most of the music I listen to isn't available or wasn't recorded in multi-channel, and I wouldn't sacrifice the high end sound quality to get surround effects in home theater movies...

Cinematic_Systems - You bring up an interesting point that I really didn't think of when I started the thread.

OK EVERYONE, let mix things up then. 14k is the budget for 2channel, 6K for MC. You rooms are equal; you have enough space to properly setup a 2channel or MC system. This is your realistic budget, you can't spend a dime more.

Well Neo, which will it be? The blue pill or the red pill?

Don't you mean a $6000 multichannel system and a $14,000 two channel system?

That is a more fair distribution of $20K in this contest.

See the 6K/14K causes a real problem because with some luck I could sell my $14,000 two channel system to some unsuspecting noob, for $7,000+ easy, thus I could then buy a $7,000+ surround system, which is even better than the $6000 surround system....am I off topic? Can I change the rules mid thread?, because I think the question is too easy?

OK, I'll shut up now, I'm voting surround.

I have a hard enough time working with two speakers and a room. But, I would love to have 10k to blow on a pair of Wilsons. Stereo for me.

Thanks for the spell check. I'll try to be a little more careful next time.

Glad to see your horizons have been broadened. Enjoy your days in MC bliss.

On a $10,000 budget - 2-channel!

"I've ha(d) (an) opportunity to hear a multichannel setup done right and can't see myself going back to 2-channel." You must have heard mine, CD! :-)

I love big-orchestra Classical and film music, and MC is REALLY 'where it's at' (as the semiliterate diddeeboppers say). MC sound is MUCH more spacious and natural sounding to me. The people who record big-orchestra stuff in MC seem to realize that we want the sounds of real orchestras playing in real spaces; hence they back the mics off a bit and do NOT play with them* (much, at least) during the performance. I have almost a hundred MC Classical and film discs and am buying more all the time.

$10,000? I'd still have Eminent Technology 8s in my system, a 6-channel analog preamp, and a separate poweramp, altho I might have to use a single MC poweramp instead of tubed separates.

* except DG in the Philharmonie; those MC recordings sound gain-ridden, as if the engineers/producers STILL can't stand the thought of having, say, a solo flute actually sound as if it's 10 or 15 feet farther back in the orchestra.
.