Upmixing - where are we at? Have people compared upmixers?

[Magnus]

Could someone explain to me what this DTS upmixing weakness is please?

The biggest problem I've heard with Neural X (not sure about older DTS upmixers) is it likes to place music instruments on the ceiling that probably don't belong there but this mostly happens from stereo tracks, not 5.1/7.1. With stereo movies ones, it's similarto DSU IMO. Some say the phase is all wrong with stereo sources, but I'm just not hearing that in testing.

Crocodile Dundee, for example, extracted from stereo sounded great with Logic7, DSU and Neural X with the ceiling speakers disabled. There was a bit more ambience with them on in DSU and Neural X, but nothing crazy.

 

[Chr1]

OK. I guess this isn't something that I have encountered as I don't use height channels or upmix movies personally. I only use DTS for upmixing two channel music to 9.2. Having spent some time testing out various upmixers fairly extensively years ago, I decided that I actually preferred DTS Neo: X.
However as I primarily use it for modern electronic music, I suspect that as an upmixer, it may not be so well suited for other genres.

 

[Soundmixer]

I wonder if it might be useful to list links to any relevant technical comparisons that are available online.

For example, about a year ago on this thread, I added a link that compared DTS NEO: X (my upmixer of choice), to various other upmixers. Though not exactly a deep dive, it is somewhat more technical and objective than just the authors purely subjective opinion.

I would be interested to know if anyone has any other sources for such comparisons.
(Perhaps it may warrant a separate thread.)

Link to DTS NEO: X review posted earlier here

NEO:X has been replaced by Neural X. They are not the same upmixer; Neural X is much more sophisticated.

 

[Soundmixer]

Could someone explain to me what this DTS upmixing weakness is please?

When it comes to 2.0 music, it is far too aggressive in steering information to the other channels. It does not sound very good with any stereo source, including movies. Where it shines is with 5.1 and 7.1 music and film sources.

 

[sfogg]

That's why I think it would be particularly interesting to try Logic7 expanded to Logic "30" on a Trinnov Altitude processor using the digitized 7.1 inputs. It may be the only processor capable of doing just that.

My QLI-32 can take 2,5.1 or 7.1 inputs and process that out to 32 channels. I am only running 17 plus subs right now.

 

[Miker 1102]

When it comes to 2.0 music, it is far too aggressive in steering information to the other channels. It does not sound very good with any stereo source, including movies. Where it shines is with 5.1 and 7.1 music and film sources.

Yes. Neural is excellent with 5.1 sources. I am always extremely impressed with it.

 

[Chr1]

When it comes to 2.0 music, it is far too aggressive in steering information to the other channels. It does not sound very good with any stereo source, including movies. Where it shines is with 5.1 and 7.1 music and film sources.

Yes, but this is actually why I prefer it. As I said, I play primary modern electronic music and I very much like both the envelopment and the steering of the music to the various channels.
I get this may not be desirable with many genres. ie. Probably not necessarily what you would want with, say blues or jazz. However, I find it works very well for what I am playing. YMMV.

 

[Chr1]

NEO:X has been replaced by Neural X. They are not the same upmixer; Neural X is much more sophisticated.

Yes thanks, I'm aware of that.
I am using an older Pioneer Elite SC-LX86 with Neo: X, and prefer it to the other upmixers available on it.

 

[Magnus]

When it comes to 2.0 music, it is far too aggressive in steering information to the other channels. It does not sound very good with any stereo source, including movies. Where it shines is with 5.1 and 7.1 music and film sources.

I've never heard anything negative from MOVIE sources using stereo inputs to it (other than music going overhead, which many Atmos movies purposely do). In fact, it sounds almost identical ar ear level to DSU. Overhead is often more precise with Neural X.

I think the Neural X doesn't work with stereo is an old wives tale.

 

[Andysu]

I've never heard anything negative from MOVIE sources using stereo inputs to it (other than music going overhead, which many Atmos movies purposely do). In fact, it sounds almost identical ar ear level to DSU. Overhead is often more precise with Neural X.

I think the Neural X doesn't work with stereo is an old wives tale.

dsu takes signal from left and right and plasters it overhead , often can hear distracting crosstalk of left right
dts neural x takes signal from the surrounds and plasters it overhead and seating is gonna be within this zone range , where's dsu sounds distracting it belongs way up front

these matrix decoders are ever hardly used here , trinnov ain't all that good , i would have expected something far matrix advanced that is built-in ,, there is diy matrix that can out perform most top selling processors avr's

 

[Magnus]

Um.... yeah, none of that is correct as written.

 

[Soundmixer]

I've never heard anything negative from MOVIE sources using stereo inputs to it (other than music going overhead, which many Atmos movies purposely do). In fact, it sounds almost identical ar ear level to DSU. Overhead is often more precise with Neural X.

I think the Neural X doesn't work with stereo is an old wives tale.

Many folks, including me, do not share your experience. Neural X sounds nothing like DSU at the bed level. DSU does not touch any information that is hard panned to the Left and right channels, but Neural X tries to move anything that is not mono. It will separate things that should be together, will pan things in two different directions at once, has stability issues with vocals (makes them blurry on occasion), is far too aggressive in steering things upward, and will just make a mess of stereo sources. There is also a phasey character to the sound that DSU does not have.


With 5.1 and 7.1 sources, it comes so close to mimicking Atmos and X that you will almost forget the source is 5.1 or 7.1. This is what Neural X was built for.

 

[Soundmixer]

dsu takes signal from left and right and plasters it overhead , often can hear distracting crosstalk of left right

dts neural x takes signal from the surrounds and plasters it overhead and seating is gonna be within this zone range , where's dsu sounds distracting it belongs way up front

As usual, you are not knowledgeable about how something works. If a signal is panned hard right or left, DSU does not touch it. DSU is extremely conservative in steering information, which makes it a very stable matrix decoder. In two channel, you will often have crosstalk in the source itself, and that cannot be blamed on DSU.

 

[Magnus]

Many folks, including me, do not share your experience. Neural X sounds nothing like DSU at the bed level. DSU does not touch any information that is hard panned to the Left and right channels, but Neural X tries to move anything that is not mono. It will separate things that should be together, will pan things in two different directions at once, has stability issues with vocals (makes them blurry on occasion), is far too aggressive in steering things upward, and will just make a mess of stereo sources. There is also a phasey character to the sound that DSU does not have.


With 5.1 and 7.1 sources, it comes so close to mimicking Atmos and X that you will almost forget the source is 5.1 or 7.1. This is what Neural X was built for.

I simply have not heard this happen in any subjective negative fashion with regular stereo mixes. Crocodile Dundee, for example, sounded similar in all three formats (Logic7, DSU and Neural X). You say it sounds "nothing like it" and that just sounds mind blowing ABSURD. There's clearly something wrong with your equipment. Try as I might to find "problem" surround tracks, I've had no luck with movies. I've got numerous test tracks as well. Neural X has a full Pro Logic style decoder built into it for traditional movie extraction. That's just a FACT. Music, however, is a different story. Logic7 is best, followed by Auromatic, then DSU and Neural X, IMO.

DSU moves anything out of phase big time. It makes zero attempt to preserve the overall original stereo playback imaging. Only Auromatic does that, really. Auromatic does, however expand quite further back into the room in the 2nd and 3rd rows, which sound very far from the music in stereo mode. Logic 7 is a bit more conservative with hard imaging compared to DSU and lacks direct overhead ambience (although sometimes it sounds like it's up there to my ears, which at least one review mentioned is part of the design, which might explain how it manages to put Star Wars sounds on the ceiling during the Episode IV opener when they look up and the ship is being tractored in), but in general, Logic 7 makes an incredible ambient feel to most music. Hard out-of-phase will move to the sides/back of the room, however as many of my more ambient CD music discs demonstrate. Neural X is weird with stereo music, often wanting to put instruments on the ceiling like a movie soundtrack typically does with more recent Atmos soundtracks. It doesn't do this with 5.1/7.1 music anywhere near as much, however.

 

[dlaloum]

Yes, but this is actually why I prefer it. As I said, I play primary modern electronic music and I very much like both the envelopment and the steering of the music to the various channels.
I get this may not be desirable with many genres. ie. Probably not necessarily what you would want with, say blues or jazz. However, I find it works very well for what I am playing. YMMV.

Electronic Music as a genre is inherently artificial, and the artificiality of the DTS rendition of it, is not "out of place" - the combo works...

But for acoustic instruments, recorded so as to provide a you are there (or they are here) impression of reality with a stereo setup, it messes things up.

Hence it (as always) comes down to what your objective is.

There have always been those who prefer a classical orchestra to be portrayed as if they were sitting surrounded by a three dimensional bubble of instruments with sounds coming from all directions (including height)....

Others have preferred to have a portrayal more akin to a concert hall, (which isn't exactly a paragon of "imaging"!), still others want to hear a small baroque orchestra playing in their listening space.

My own preference is to allow the "native" mastering of the original recording to dominate, while using the multi speaker surround setup to lightly enhance it - for stereo music.

For surround material - I expect the surround effects to be rendered authentically, and properly steered to the desired (by the mastering engineer who recorded it) location through optimal use of my speakers/room/setup...

Those are my "perfect" world expectations... for music which is 99% stereo, I historically preferred L7 Music - but I have not owned hardware capable of that in circa 20 years.... after L7 left the premises, PLII was my next best option... more recently DSU (with PLII not available on my current hardware), and for the last 2 months Auro and DSU have been competing - both seem to do a good job, I am not convinced that I inherently prefer one over the other - but DTS is definitely NOT in the running. (my preferred music is almost always acoustic instruments rather than electronica, and DTS ends up frequently sounding artificial)

 

[thcdru2k]

On my Denon I usually enable Center Spread when using Dolby Surround to upmix stereo music. Without it vocals seem stuck to center channel.

Now that I have in-ceiling Atmos I prefer Neural X the majority of the time. It seems to be more aggressive in its use of the Atmos speakers.

 

[Soundmixer]

I simply have not heard this happen in any subjective negative fashion with regular stereo mixes. Crocodile Dundee, for example, sounded similar in all three formats (Logic7, DSU and Neural X). You say it sounds "nothing like it" and that just sounds mind blowing ABSURD. There's clearly something wrong with your equipment. Try as I might to find "problem" surround tracks, I've had no luck with movies. I've got numerous test tracks as well. Neural X has a full Pro Logic style decoder built into it for traditional movie extraction. That's just a FACT. Music, however, is a different story. Logic7 is best, followed by Auromatic, then DSU and Neural X, IMO.

Several things here. There is nothing wrong with my equipment. You have never heard either of my systems, so you cannot evaluate whether something is right or wrong with them. Crocodile Dundee is not the greatest movie to do an analysis on these different upmixers. It does not have a dynamic enough mix to challenge any of them.

Neural X is not a full prologic-style decoder. It is far more sophisticated than that if you understand how it works. This description shows you don't.

DSU moves anything out of phase big time. It makes zero attempt to preserve the overall original stereo playback imaging. Only Auromatic does that, really. Auromatic does, however expand quite further back into the room in the 2nd and 3rd rows, which sound very far from the music in stereo mode. Logic 7 is a bit more conservative with hard imaging compared to DSU and lacks direct overhead ambience (although sometimes it sounds like it's up there to my ears, which at least one review mentioned is part of the design, which might explain how it manages to put Star Wars sounds on the ceiling during the Episode IV opener when they look up and the ship is being tractored in), but in general, Logic 7 makes an incredible ambient feel to most music. Hard out-of-phase will move to the sides/back of the room, however as many of my more ambient CD music discs demonstrate. Neural X is weird with stereo music, often wanting to put instruments on the ceiling like a movie soundtrack typically does with more recent Atmos soundtracks. It doesn't do this with 5.1/7.1 music anywhere near as much, however.

DSU does not touch hard panned sound effects, which means it DOES attempt to preserve as much of the stereo image as it can. I haven't heard logic 7 in quite a while, so I cannot comment on how it performs.

 

[Magnus]

Several things here. There is nothing wrong with my equipment. You have never heard either of my systems, so you cannot evaluate whether something is right or wrong with them. Crocodile Dundee is not the greatest movie to do an analysis on these different upmixers. It does not have a dynamic enough mix to challenge any of them.

Neural X is not a full prologic-style decoder. It is far more sophisticated than that if you understand how it works. This description shows you don't.


DSU does not touch hard panned sound effects, which means it DOES attempt to preserve as much of the stereo image as it can. I haven't heard logic 7 in quite a while, so I cannot comment on how it performs.

Wow.

Auromatic is the upmixer that doesn't change anything from stereo. It leaves uncorrelated sounds in the main L/R channels while DSU moves them to the sides, rear and on some versions the Front Wides AND some sounds go overhead as L/R ambience!!! You call THAT not screwing with the stereo layout!?!?

Auromatic is night and day different sounding from DSU, which frankly sounds quite similar to PLIIx if you turn the overheads off. It lacks the adjustable parameters, but it still moves uncorrelated sounds around the room while Auromatic doesn't touch them in the main speakers. It ADDS surround ambience and reverb, but doesn't change the stereo mix in the front at all! DSU removes the uncorrelated sounds from the mains and moves then around the room.

Neural X is more sophisticated, but is still fully capable of basic Pro Logic surround decoding. Run a Dolby Surround or PLIIx demo through it. All the reference encoded sounds come out where they are supposed to. Where it's more sophisticated is with more complex real world sounds.

Crocodile Dundee includes TONS of real world outback and big city sounds. It's stereo encoded Pro Logic only and that combination makes it the perfect test of a two channel mix for decoding. If you don't feel like your in the middle of a jungle in some of those scenes in Australia, there's something very wrong with your setup or decoder.

While the perspectives are somewhat different, none of those (Neural X, DSU, PLIIx or Logic 7) failed to reproduce a convincing environmental wrap-around sonic landscape. The big loser was Auromatic, IMO. It was front heavy stereo with only bit of ambience.

 

[Soundmixer]

Wow.

Auromatic is the upmixer that doesn't change anything from stereo. It leaves uncorrelated sounds in the main L/R channels while DSU moves them to the sides, rear and on some versions the Front Wides AND some sounds go overhead as L/R ambience!!! You call THAT not screwing with the stereo layout!?!?

ALL of the upmixer "screw" with the stereo layout. Auromatic is nothing more than a multimono copy machine with delay added. The very action of moving signals upward(even if you leave the main information alone) will still spoil the stereo image because of the additional channels. Your point is pointless here.

Auromatic is night and day different sounding from DSU, which frankly sounds quite similar to PLIIx if you turn the overheads off. It lacks the adjustable parameters, but it still moves uncorrelated sounds around the room while Auromatic doesn't touch them in the main speakers. It ADDS surround ambience and reverb, but doesn't change the stereo mix in the front at all! DSU removes the uncorrelated sounds from the mains and moves then around the room.

Anytime anyone says "night and day difference," my hyperbole alert goes off. If auromatic ADDS anything, it is changing the stereo mix. DSU does not ADD anything, and neither does Neural X. Auromatic does NOT add anything, and all alter the stereo mix. The very nature of upmixing alters the stereo mix.

Neural X is more sophisticated, but is still fully capable of basic Pro Logic surround decoding. Run a Dolby Surround or PLIIx demo through it. All the reference encoded sounds come out where they are supposed to. Where it's more sophisticated is with more complex real world sounds.

Before you make this statement, you should test it. Otherwise, it is false information. You don't know how Neural X will handle Dolby surround or PLIIx until you actually test it. Not buying what you are selling here.

Crocodile Dundee includes TONS of real world outback and big city sounds. It's stereo encoded Pro Logic only and that combination makes it the perfect test of a two channel mix for decoding. If you don't feel like your in the middle of a jungle in some of those scenes in Australia, there's something very wrong with your setup or decoder.

Well, considering PL hasn't been used in AVR in decades, I am not sure anyone can test out your theory except those still living in yesteryear.

While the perspectives are somewhat different, none of those (Neural X, DSU, PLIIx or Logic 7) failed to reproduce a convincing environmental wrap-around sonic landscape. The big loser was Auromatic, IMO. It was front heavy stereo with only bit of ambience.

PL does not upmix to heights, so comparing it to upmixers that do is kind of airheaded.

 

[thcdru2k]

All upmixers alter the stereo signal. Some listeners prioritize preserving the original presentation and others prefer a more enveloping, redistributed sound.