Multichannel System for Music - Standards, Setup, Thoughts, etc.

[ernestcarl]

Does "Move Center to L/R" mean no center channel?

Yep. Absolutely no problem given how close my monitors are which is 0.75 meter from my head. If fact, in my situation sythesizing the surround channels improves the illussion of a phantom center image. And going back to stereo significantly reduces the sense of envelopment and space even more (probably) due to my somewhat extreme nearfield setup.

*If the source has a center channel, JRiver will synthesize a phantom center using using your Left and Right monitors.

 

[Sal1950]

Does "Move Center to L/R" mean no center channel?

??? Sure sounds like it.

 

[mvil]

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Beatles-Abbey-Road-Blu-ray/249908/#Review

I've listened to it on DTS Master Audio and Atmos.

This is reference of how multichannel music should be mastered.

 

[Egghead]

Based on this thread, I plan to upgrade to either a Denon X4400H or X4500H, so I can get Auro-3D and the ability to run 11-channel (with external amp). I currently have my surrounds just ahead of the MLP, which I've found I prefer to having them directly to the side, or somewhat behind. I up-mix stereo to multichannel nearly all the time. I recently added two front height speakers, and now enjoy music in multi-channel even more. The discussion in this thread makes me think I'll like Auro-Matic that much more.

Now I just need to decide whether IMAX Enhanced (pretty much the only difference between the X4400H and X4500H) is worth it.

I am curious, though, how you Auro-Matic listeners have your second set of height speakers set up. According to the X4500H manual:

"For the best Auro-3D experience Surround Height speakers are recommended, however you may substitute Rear Height speakers from a Dolby Atmos speaker setup in place of Surround Height speakers."

So it sounds like rear heights is the best setup if one wants to be able to use Atmos, DTS:X and Auro-3D, but it may not give the best Auro-Matic experience. Is this what those of you who listen to music in Auro-Matic upmixing do? Do you find it a reasonable compromise? Or do you put the second height speakers in the surround position, sacrificing Atmos and DTS:X?

 

[Sal1950]

So it sounds like rear heights is the best setup if one wants to be able to use Atmos, DTS:X and Auro-3D, but it may not give the best Auro-Matic experience. Is this what those of you who listen to music in Auro-Matic upmixing do? Do you find it a reasonable compromise? Or do you put the second height speakers in the surround position, sacrificing Atmos and DTS:X?

Mine are set-up in the Atmos positions with 2 just to the rear of the MLP and 2 about 1/2 or a little less forward. You have to look at what will work in your room. But since 99.99 % of movies are encoded Atmos, I find it wise to sacrafice the Auro setup. Besides I find that the most attractive part of Auro stereo upmixing is the way it handles the lower channels, specially the front 3 and the way it retains a correct image there.

 

[otinkyad]

I am curious, though, how you Auro-Matic listeners have your second set of height speakers set up. According to the X4500H manual:

I have two "height" speakers in front, one above each of the L and R mains ("height" because they are only at about 45 inches height -- can't mount on walls in front). The other two height speakers are mounted on the side walls just rear of the MLP. As @Sal1950 said, a lot will depend on what works in a particular room, and the positioning in my case is very dependent on my room constraints. I have my Marantz AV7704 configured to treat all of these four as Atmos speakers, and this enables them to work for both Atmos and Auromatic-3D. Marantz/Denon documentation describes a "unified configuration" (Front Height and Rear Height), which is supposed to work for both Atmos and Auro-3D, but I've been unable to get that to work with 7.1 (I think it did work with 5.1). BTW, AFAIK, Auromatic-3D cannot use rear non-height speakers, i.e., it only adds onto a 5.1 base. Even with all of this (speaker placement and configuration) being highly suboptimal, I find the Auromatic 3D upmixing to enhance the soundstage in a way I really like -- both in front, as @Sal1950 said, but also vertically -- a sense of "auditorium-like roof space" is my best description. I'm beginning to think that I may in some cases prefer Auromatic-3D upmixed 2-channel over (some) discrete multichannel recordings that to my ears have low "discreteness".

 

[otinkyad]

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Beatles-Abbey-Road-Blu-ray/249908/#Review

I've listened to it on DTS Master Audio and Atmos.

This is reference of how multichannel music should be mastered.

@mvil, just curious, have you listened to the Yes Steven Wilson multichannel mixes? If so, did you feel that the Abbey Road 5.1 and 7.1.x were at least as good as those? I ask because my take (so far) is that to me, the Wilson/Yes mch mixes are reference quality, but I haven't felt that Abbey Road (either DTS-HD MA/Atmos) is on par in terms of mch mixing. (IMO, YMMV!)

 

[mvil]

@mvil, just curious, have you listened to the Yes Steven Wilson multichannel mixes? If so, did you feel that the Abbey Road 5.1 and 7.1.x were at least as good as those? I ask because my take (so far) is that to me, the Wilson/Yes mch mixes are reference quality, but I haven't felt that Abbey Road (either DTS-HD MA/Atmos) is on par in terms of mch mixing. (IMO, YMMV!)

I haven't but i can give it a try.

Which one specificaly do you feel was better?

 

[Sal1950]

@mvil, just curious, have you listened to the Yes Steven Wilson multichannel mixes? If so, did you feel that the Abbey Road 5.1 and 7.1.x were at least as good as those? I ask because my take (so far) is that to me, the Wilson/Yes mch mixes are reference quality, but I haven't felt that Abbey Road (either DTS-HD MA/Atmos) is on par in terms of mch mixing. (IMO, YMMV!)

I felt the Abby Road mix was a beautifully smooth master, maybe a bit too rolled off on top to achieve the smoothness. Also I did feel it was a bit too active (loud) in the rear channels.
YMMV

 

[otinkyad]

I felt the Abby Road mix was a beautifully smooth master, maybe a bit too rolled off on top to achieve the smoothness. Also I did feel it was a bit too active (loud) in the rear channels.
YMMV

@Sal1950 -- Interesting to hear your take -- it may have been the smoothness you mention that to me felt like missing detail -- but I'll have to listen more. I didn't catch the rear loudness. [EDIT: Apart from the mastering, I think also the mch mix didn't have as much separation as I seem to like, but perhaps I like more discreteness than is tasteful .]

I haven't but i can give it a try.
Which one specificaly do you feel was better?

@mvil -- some of the Steven Wilson Yes mch remixes where I'm familiar with both stereo and mch mixes are Close To The Edge, and Fragile, for both of which I think the mch is terrific. Others here may have other suggestions. My general impression from various discussion forums is that Steven Wilson's mch remixes of Yes are widely regarded as "masterful". I would certainly agree with that, with the caveat that my own experience/knowledge is limited.

 

[pierre]

I upmix most music using https://www.perfectsurround.com/ (expensive plugin with some very nice properties).

My routing is:

roon or vlc -> rme in -> loopback -> reaper (daw) -> rx declip (for stereo) -> perfectsurround -> rme in
the volume control is done on the RME remote (so i control all channels at one in the digital domain)

What is working well:
- i can generate an atmos or aero3d 11.1 stream from both a stereo or a classical 5.1 or 7.1 without touching a button.
- volume control
- i can easily adapt the C channel volume (it depends a lot of what i am listening), i can decide how much i want to send on the ceiling speakers.
- a few presets match most recording

What is not working that well:
1. i cannot decode dolby atmos or similar object base streams
2. i still need to adapt the preset depending on the machine.

For 1. i don't care too much
For 2. some machine learning will fix that (work in progress) or more simply read the metadata and apply some present depending on the metadata

Perfectsurround is better to my ears than the other i tried but not perfect. If there was a lot of reverb in the recording, then it doesn't work that well and you need to tune it better. I have not yet measure perfectsurround to see what it does with a sin wave.

 

[GrimSurfer]

@Sal1950 -- Interesting to hear your take -- it may have been the smoothness you mention that to me felt like missing detail -- but I'll have to listen more. I didn't catch the rear loudness. [EDIT: Apart from the mastering, I think also the mch mix didn't have as much separation as I seem to like, but perhaps I like more discreteness than is tasteful .]


@mvil -- some of the Steven Wilson Yes mch remixes where I'm familiar with both stereo and mch mixes are Close To The Edge, and Fragile, for both of which I think the mch is terrific. Others here may have other suggestions. My general impression from various discussion forums is that Steven Wilson's mch remixes of Yes are widely regarded as "masterful". I would certainly agree with that, with the caveat that my own experience/knowledge is limited.

It's generally accepted that the mastering process for a good part of The Beatles catalog was consistent with other pop recordings of the era. This is another way of saying that they weren't good. Fresh tape wasn't always used, a great deal of commercial pressure to 'get the damn thing out' existed, and the degree of success wasn't often apparent because of the transitory nature of popular taste. So some corners were cut.

Prog rock mastering was much different. First of all, the artists had a much better appreciation of sound and the recording process because the experimental nature of their music required it. Fresh tape was generally used and costs were managed by using every single inch of it (which introduces issues, but surmountable ones). There was little pressure but the artistic pressures often drove a whole other circle of confusion (which provided a lot of spare tracks from which the mastering process could choose).

Wilson's work is 75% remastering, 25% remixing. The reason his prof rock stuff sounds so good is that the master tapes, while by no means perfect, were good enough to be exploited by today's tech.

The Abbey Road remaster is OK, but it's FR is still constrained by what was on the master tapes... and my sense was that it was merely "good enough" for the era of Crossley turntables and transistor radios. So the potential for a modern remastering process to deliver the same kind of gains as Fragile, CTTE, etc. is much lower.

 

[otinkyad]

It's generally accepted that the mastering process for a good part of The Beatles catalog was consistent with other pop recordings of the era. This is another way of saying that they weren't good. Fresh tape wasn't always used, a great deal of commercial pressure to 'get the damn thing out' existed, and the degree of success wasn't often apparent because of the transitory nature of popular taste. So some corners were cut.

Prog rock mastering was much different. First of all, the artists had a much better appreciation of sound and the recording process because the experimental nature of their music required it. Fresh tape was generally used and costs were managed by using every single inch of it (which introduces issues, but surmountable ones). There was little pressure but the artistic pressures often drove a whole other circle of confusion (which provided a lot of spare tracks from which the mastering process could choose).

Wilson's work is 75% remastering, 25% remixing. The reason his prof rock stuff sounds so good is that the master tapes, while by no means perfect, were good enough to be exploited by today's tech.

The Abbey Road remaster is OK, but it's FR is still constrained by what was on the master tapes... and my sense was that it was merely "good enough" for the era of Crossley turntables and transistor radios. So the potential for a modern remastering process to deliver the same kind of gains as Fragile, CTTE, etc. is much lower.

Very informative, thanks!

 

[Sal1950]

@Sal1950 -- Interesting to hear your take -- it may have been the smoothness you mention that to me felt like missing detail -

Yep, I guess it could be also be described that way.

My take on all the Wilson Yes multich releases are that they're excellent, probably the best of all the multich remasters available.

 

[otinkyad]

To anyone who is in a position to make a comparison between:
(1) Abbey Road Redbook, upmixed to 5.x.4 (or better) via Auromatic-3D, and
(2) Abbey Road (2019) Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 (or better)

Would you be willing to make that comparison and share your impressions? -- thanks in advance for any thoughts.

Hopefully, this is not off-topic for either this thread or this forum.

 

[Dogen]

Yep, I guess it could be also be described that way.

My take on all the Wilson Yes multich releases are that they're excellent, probably the best of all the multich remasters available.

They are indeed excellent! I’d also add his multichannel mix of King Crimson’s Lark’s Tongue in Aspic. It really opens up the music and the recording. I felt like I was hearing it for the first time.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

To anyone who is in a position to make a comparison between:
(1) Abbey Road Redbook, upmixed to 5.x.4 (or better) via Auromatic-3D, and
(2) Abbey Road (2019) Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 (or better)

Would you be willing to make that comparison and share your impressions? -- thanks in advance for any thoughts.

I had that opportunity recently....................................and decided not to bother.

 

[otinkyad]

I had that opportunity recently....................................and decided not to bother.

@Kal Rubinson -- So I can understand this better, did you not want to bother with this because it seemed that the discrete multichannel would inevitably sound better? Or was there some other reason why you felt the comparison would be fruitless?

I was trying to avoid mentioning my own impression from this comparison for now, so as not to bias anyone else who might make the comparison. But perhaps I should provide my own impressions, as it may provide context to my original query about the comparison.

I was startled to find that I much preferred the Auromatic-3D upmixed 1990-something Redbook over the 2019 Dolby Atmos. (IMO!) In trying to think about my preference, I've concluded that this is about my not liking the 2019 remaster (rather than anything about the multichannel remix), because my preference holds even for the 2-channel 1990-ish Redbook over the 2019 2-channel remaster. I also think that this is not simply a matter of my preferring the more familiar master, as I do not have the corresponding familiarity preference for the corresponding comparisons for the White Album.

More generally, in posting my comparison request, I thought that if anyone more knowledgeable/experienced than me also happens to feel that upmixed Auromatic-3D can sometimes rival a discrete mch mix, that would be a relevant datapoint for some of the issues that have been discussed on this thread. [EDIT: If I understand correctly, Dr. Toole @Floyd Toole has suggested something along these lines (Post #123: "In the absence of real multichannel recordings of the music we like, upmixed stereo is highly rewarding. Even if multichannel recordings existed there is the real possibility that all listeners may not agree with the spatial balance chosen by the engineer."). I'm wondering if Abbey Road provides an exemplar relevant to this idea].

 

[Kal Rubinson]

@Kal Rubinson -- So I can understand this better, did you not want to bother with this because it seemed that the discrete multichannel would inevitably sound better? Or was there some other reason why you felt the comparison would be fruitless?

None of the above. I will probably never play the album again, so any effort at such a comparison offers no return on my investment.

 

[audimus]

Something being missed here is that there are many schools of thoughts on what a multi-channel mix is.

All of them include mixing into center channel content that went into both mains at the minimum. But what they do with the surrounds as well as moving instruments around is very different and personal preferences come into play here.

The two major divisions are between those mixes that try to maintain a fixed stage but expand it to be wider or even a wrap around and those that don’t necessarily localize an instrument for the entire track but move them or stretch them.

Hall effect type - Only a reverb like delayed echo is fed into surrounds. There may be some left and right mains fed into surrounds to expand the stage and/or to bring the stage forward and add some depth. Preferred by those that expect a bigger stage and in front of MLP. Come together in Abbey Road 5.1 mix is a good example like most songs in that production. It is a very good mix for this type of surround.

3D surround - More of a headphones/Imax like imaging around your head than a stage in front. Preferred by those that like the headphones experience. Most of the post-processing surround effects are of this type. People who expect this type of surround may not like the above type of mix and prefer the post-processing modes of stereo content instead.

Motion effects - Instruments can move around here from left to right or front to back based on music. This is almost a re-imagining of the song as it changes the character quite a bit. Sun King on Abbey Road has George Harrison’s guitar moving around you, for example. For some, this just sounds artificial. But some seem to like it because it shows off the multiple channels perhaps justifying the expense of a multi-channel system!

The Wilson mix of Fragile uses all of the above and “feels” more like multi-channel music and so some may like this better than the Abbey Road type of mix. But then the producer is playing a much more creative (and intrusive) role here.