"Hey Jeffreybehr. With 2 channel, music still arrives at our 2 ears from all directions. And live music *starts* its journey to our ears typically from in front of us, not all around us. So what's your point?"
My point is that an equally good 4- or 5-channel system simply gets it 'righter' than the same-quality 2-channel system. I have NEVER heard a 2-channel system that sounds as natural and spacious when playing big-orchestra music as my own 5-channel system. I can't comment on multichannel pop mixes since I listen to none, but the vast majority of multichannel recordings of big orchestras I've heard sound more natural and real--more like The Absolute Sound of a real orchestra playing in a real space--than the BEST 2-channel recordings I've ever heard, and they sound MUCH better than the multimono, multimiced, knob-twiddled 2-channel recordings that comprise about 95% of the classical recordings we usually get.
No matter how great a 2-channel system sounds, and some of them can and do sound VERY good, adding 3 appropriately matching channels to it will improve its realism and naturalness...IMO, of course.
I'm damn glad the industry has come up with the hi-res, multichannel media of DVD-A and SACD. They may not be selling lots, but QUALITY never has--witness the gross revenues of the brain-dead boom-and-crash movies aimed at adolescent diddeeboppers compared with those of some movies one may have to THINK about, such as 'Off the Map', 'Sideways', or 'The Wild Parrotts of Telegraph Hill'.
I suspect those of you who dis multichannel-music reproduction may never have heard a great-sounding one. If you're ever in Phoenix, look me up.
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