Does a surround sound receiver make sense for stereo content?

[FrantzM]

I really dislike how finnicky the phantom center is, that and room correction is worth the investment in an AVR imo.

+1

Peace.

 

[JRS]

P.S.

An AVR is also the easiest solution if you want to add an active subwoofer (even for stereo). They have a built-in crossover called "bass management" that you can switch-in.

And if you are watching movies without a subwoofer (and without an AVR or some kind of surround decoder) you get the regular bass but the "point one" LFE channel only goes to the subwoofer so it will be lost.

What do you mean by lost? So long as you are not calling your FL and FR "small" speakers, they receive the bass signal in its entirety. A subwoofer will receive the summed L and R sub 80 material by default, this should be user adjustable. Which you can heap on top of the mains if you desire, no?

 

[napfkuchen]

I am philosophically opposed to upmixing stereo to surround... it's replacing the artists / engineers' intentions with Schiit's or Denon's. It might sound cool, but IMO is opposed to the basic concept of fidelity.

Of course, also you may not use room correction or EQ and instead stick to pure direct. BS... Listening to music is about enjoyment and not philosophy studies. My recommendation: Go for it! Spacial audio is an awesome experience, whether it be with new releases or remixes (particularly with apple music). Listened to albums by The Beatles, Billie Eilish, Post Malone, Jonas Blue, Pat Benatar and Michael Jackson recently to name a few. All these artists don't fit my usual likings but that's changed now.

 

[juliangst]

The whole point of having room correction and bass management doesn't count in my scenario because I can already do that with my stereo setup and Dirac Live Bass Control (only have standart Dirac now but will get DLBC later).

Paying almost 2K on an AVR and the Dirac license for that AVR is also a tough decision.

 

[ZolaIII]

The whole point of having room correction and bass management doesn't count in my scenario because I can already do that with my stereo setup and Dirac Live Bass Control (only have standart Dirac now but will get DLBC later).

Paying almost 2K on an AVR and the Dirac license for that AVR is also a tough decision.

Imagine that you don't have anything.
So: 700~1000 $/€ power amplifier, 100$/€ UMIK-1, 500 $/€ MiniDSP Flex, 200$/€ Dirac Live licence and lot of work and learning... suddenly mid range Denon AVR-X3700H (old one with AKM DAC) for 1200$/€ now look cheap (and easy to use) for what you get.

 

[napfkuchen]

Imagine that you don't have anything.
So: 700~1000 $/€ power amplifier, 100$/€ UMIK-1, 500 $/€ MiniDSP Flex, 200$/€ Dirac Live licence and lot of work and learning... suddenly mid range Denon AVR-X3700H (old one with AKM DAC) for 1200$/€ now look cheap (and easy to use) for what you get.

Had the old Denon X3700H and bought an X3800H for 1.220 EUR recently because of Auro 3D upmixing capability and option for Dirac. Thankfully I'm not the golden ear club, very happy after some fiddling with dirac live.

 

[kemmler3D]

Of course, also you may not use room correction or EQ and instead stick to pure direct. BS... Listening to music is about enjoyment and not philosophy studies. My recommendation: Go for it! Spacial audio is an awesome experience, whether it be with new releases or remixes (particularly with apple music). Listened to albums by The Beatles, Billie Eilish, Post Malone, Jonas Blue, Pat Benatar and Michael Jackson recently to name a few. All these artists don't fit my usual likings but that's changed now.

Spatial audio is created in the studio, I have no problem with it.

What I have a philosophical issue with is upmixing, which is just adding special effects to the original recording. It's "fake surround". I don't think that's a WRONG, BAD way to listen to music, if you like it, by all means, listen that way. But personally I don't like the idea because it's tampering with the original recording.

I feel a similar way about high-distortion tube amps and such. If the mixing engineer wanted that much distortion in the mix, they would have added it.

Likewise, if the mixing engineer wanted to make a silly 4- or 5-channel mix by doing simple sum and difference operations between the stereo channels, instead of doing a proper 4- or 5-channel mix, they would have done it.

You may not care about the artists' / producers' / engineers' intentions and maybe you don't care about fidelity per se. That's fine! Honestly, no sarcasm here. There are no laws or rules here and it doesn't bother me if someone wants to listen in some other way. "The Original Recording" isn't the best, it's just the original.

Corrective EQ to make your speaker / room more accurate is really the opposite of this. Generally you use that to get closer to "the original", so I'm in favor of it.

 

[MAB]

The whole point of having room correction and bass management doesn't count in my scenario because I can already do that with my stereo setup and Dirac Live Bass Control (only have standart Dirac now but will get DLBC later).

Paying almost 2K on an AVR and the Dirac license for that AVR is also a tough decision.

My biggest problem, all of the AVR I owned ran super hot. The last Marantz I had ran the hottest. It was so bad I had to take it out of the well-ventialted rack and let it cook in the open, and it still ran super hot. I ran 5 monoblocks to offload the amplification, no perceptible difference in heat. It failed after 2 years, previous AVRs failed at 3 and 5 years, also ran hot. They sure build lots of stuff into those boxes, even if they ran cool it seems time to fail is shorter all other things being equal. My HT is stereo now, and I seem to get better subwoofer integration and room correction with a MiniDSP. Perhaps I just tried harder on the subs... But for sure I am really happy with the bass now. I use REW to generate the room correction filters. I tried DIRAC on the MiniDSP and it gave me good insight but I am fairly comfortable with REW and a mic and something like a MiniDSP Flex or SHD.

I really do want a proper CC and surround system, but not that bad. Even after throwing money on mid-range AVR and concentric center channel, etc. I'm kinda dissatisfied. My friend has a full JBL 708 / Denon Pro home theater that does do everything right, but that is an order of magnitude more than my HT interest level. All I want to do is outperform a movie theater, with a pause button.

 

[kemmler3D]

how the hell do we even know what the intent of the engineer was.

Pretty simple if you restrict the discussion to what's on the disc... intention = what's on the disc.

What would they have done with other technology? I guess that's a whole other discussion.

if access to multichannel playback was routine, there would have been a lot of interesting experimentation.

Probably true. However, that experimentation would also be done in the studio.

Its sort of like saying that we shouldn't colorize GWTW as the directors intent was faithfully captured with B/W.

I guess yeah it's basically the same argument. And if someone was putting some kind of low-grade "colorizer" filter on their TV for B&W content I'd argue that those are perhaps fun and interesting, but are also a "tampering" with the original and anti-fidelity.

To put it another way, making a surround mix or colorizing a movie, to the intention of the creators, would be done using the same professionalism as stereo or B&W. They wouldn't slap some passive effect on the stereo mix and call it a day, which is what upmixers basically are.

 

[napfkuchen]

My biggest problem, all of the AVR I owned ran super hot. The last Marantz I had ran the hottest. It was so bad I had to take it out of the well-ventialted rack and let it cook in the open, and it still ran super hot. I ran 5 monoblocks to offload the amplification, no perceptible difference in heat. It failed after 2 years, previous AVRs failed at 3 and 5 years, also ran hot. They sure build lots of stuff into those boxes, even if they ran cool it seems time to fail is shorter all other things being equal.

My X3800H stays cool with one of these (AC Infinity AIRCOM S8) on it.

 

[kemmler3D]

its a shame to not want to listen to what Apple Music can do for Pink Floyd or even the Who

Again, as far as I know these spatial audio mixes are based on the original masters and not just some goofy AI remix or whatever. If it's done properly in the studio by someone with an authorial relationship to the original material, fine by me.

I'm just not totally comfortable with tinkering with the mix after the fact, as if I knew better than the people who made it in the first place.

 

[napfkuchen]

What I have a philosophical issue with is upmixing, which is just adding special effects to the original recording. It's "fake surround". I don't think that's a WRONG, BAD way to listen to music, if you like it, by all means, listen that way. But personally I don't like the idea because it's tampering with the original recording.

Upmixing can create a more enveloping sound, for me that works good with older movies (5.1 input signal). But as you said it's very dependent on one's personal taste. I like to boost the height speakers +2 dB for surround music/films, others may find that is just gimmickry. Also tried upmixing with stereo music but noticed the AVR's guesswork didn't convince me.

 

[MAB]

My X3800H stays cool with one of these (AC Infinity AIRCOM S8) on it.

Good. My Marantz just ran hot, even with the AC infinity cabinet fan! Even with the fan in the open. Even with a bunch of Marantz monoblocks driving the speakers:

The amps stuffed in the cabinet with no fan ran cooler than the AVR sitting on the countertop with the fan blowing! My previous Marantz ran really hot too, but not this bad...

Your Denon looks very nice. My friend has one of their slightly older pro models which runs very cool in his rack, he has one AC infinity fan only. I do wonder if I'm just not spending enough money on an AVR! Or the wrong ones!

 

[digitalmallrat]

I used an Onkyo nr7100 for Dirac and ran a 2.1 setup with it and absolutely loved the sound. Like OP, mostly listen to music but now adding more speakers for the times I watch cinema.

 

[kemmler3D]

the AVR's guesswork didn't convince me.

Guesswork is a good word for it. I don't want to guess, I want to know!

 

[JRS]

Again, as far as I know these spatial audio mixes are based on the original masters and not just some goofy AI remix or whatever. If it's done properly in the studio by someone with an authorial relationship to the original material, fine by me.

I'm just not totally comfortable with tinkering with the mix after the fact, as if I knew better than the people who made it in the first place.

I see it as not so much as knowing better as putting a different spin on it with improved technology. Also, there was quite a bit of really masterful stuff mixed even back in the sixties which is absolutely amazing when revealed by sophisticated DSP such as BACCH that comes across ever so ordinarily with conventional playback thus obscuring the original intent. Plus there are plenty of awful masters out there reflecting either sheer incompetence or uncaring or bent by execs for commercial reasons. But I get not wanting to corrupt the original, at least when well done.

 

[kemmler3D]

putting a different spin on it with improved technology.

I mean, that's cool and I think it probably sounds pretty impressive, I haven't tried it though.

I would object to the idea that using DSP to listen to a 60s recording was the intent of the artists or engineers - it couldn't have been, because such a thing didn't exist back then. They may or may not approve of you listening to it that way, and you may or may not care.

In the mixing / recording world, there is a saying, "If it sounds good, it is good". Meaning there is no wrong way to go about creating music if the result is good.

My personal issue is I do not see music listening as a creative process - others do, and that's fine.

 

[juliangst]

Just tested surround with Apple Music through MacOS. I created a 4-channel aggregated device and configured it as 'quadrophonic'.
All the bass is on speakers L and R but a lot of sounds and some vocals are shifted towards the surround channels which is quite interesting.
This also works with movies played through Apple TV.

I think this will be the setup I will go with.

 

[Fidji]

I have combined 2Ch/MCH setup.

I ended up listening to stereo sources almost exclusively in AURO3D upmix. Is just ……. Better….
(requires e.g very good C channel and lot of tweaking)

 

[abdo123]

Imagine that you don't have anything.
So: 700~1000 $/€ power amplifier, 100$/€ UMIK-1, 500 $/€ MiniDSP Flex, 200$/€ Dirac Live licence and lot of work and learning... suddenly mid range Denon AVR-X3700H (old one with AKM DAC) for 1200$/€ now look cheap (and easy to use) for what you get.

1200 euro is what the 3800H is being sold for.