When 7.1 music upmixing is worse than 5.1 music upmixing

[hollis]

Hot take

7.1 music upmixing is worse than 5.1 music upmixing...
If you have a single seat. Everything here will not hold for multiseat or classical/real music.

Initial premise. You are an audiophile who listens to EDM with a crazy good 2.0 system.

Starting from that, you should have:
- a strong phantom center (with all the caveats that entails)
- epic soundstage
- imaging out to 90 deg to each side (more so with "end game" rigs and rooms)

Upmixing, what do you seek to gain?
- x.1 adding the sub adds tons, bass management does wonders
- surrounds, more envelopment
- When you add rears, that fills in a gap
- when you add sides, well that competes with the soundstage of the mains you allready like so much and doesnt actually fill in a need.
- If you add a center, you are faced with the prospect of do you subtract anything from LR, or leave LR alone (according to "artist's intent")? I would claim, if you add a center, you have to take something away. If you leave it out, thats a 100% valid choice.

I am saying this as someone who recently "upgraded" my office from 7.1 to 5.1, tossing 2x b2031a in the for sale pile, and upgraded my living room from 7.1 to 5.1, with 2x DIYSG HT12 sitting in the garage pending the results of this experiment. I am 90% music, so the possible hit to watching movies is trivial.

 

[LouB]

Maybe a stupid question, but if one is listing to mainly music that's been mixed down to stereo what's the goal to turn it into a 5.1 processed sound ? I have a 5.1 AV amp & the only reason I end listeing to stereo recordings in 5.1 is because the amps 2 channel mode is crap. So I'm upgrading to a 2 channel music only amp & use the AV amp for video only.
It seems to me having an amp process a 2 track recording into "surround sound" is always going to a crap shoot.

 

[hollis]

For a rock band or a jazz ensemble I agree, why not just listen in stereo. For electronic, techno, soundtracks, I have found upmixing to make them much more immersive. They are really "youre in the middle of the band" genres, vs rock or jazz that are "band is in front of you" genres. Different goals.

I'm trying to talk about upmixing in general, vs any specific gear. For this thread I suggest we assume amazing amp quality.

 

[LouB]

For a rock band or a jazz ensemble I agree, why not just listen in stereo. For electronic, techno, soundtracks, I have found upmixing to make them much more immersive. They are really "youre in the middle of the band" genres, vs rock or jazz that are "band is in front of you" genres. Different goals.

I'm trying to talk about upmixing in general, vs any specific gear. For this thread I suggest we assume amazing amp quality.

OK, didn't think at all about techno as it's just not in my wheel house I could see where having more speakers pumping would sound cool.

 

[sunao]

Can you please define an 'amazing good 2.0 system', like using a data from ASR?
I have a good 2.0 stereo system in my opinion, but it may be a crap for you... it's a subjective.

Rather, I would say I like both 2.0 and 5.1/7.1 setups. Room EQ does a job for me regarding to a surround sound production.
I am using 5.1/7.1 with A/V receiver for daytime active listing, 2.0 with stereo amp for a nighttime... I may be a minority here.

 

[dasdoing]

For a rock band or a jazz ensemble I agree, why not just listen in stereo. For electronic, techno, soundtracks, I have found upmixing to make them much more immersive. They are really "youre in the middle of the band" genres, vs rock or jazz that are "band is in front of you" genres. Different goals.

I would just duplicate L and R to the sides...with a little gain reduction perhaps.

 

[hollis]

I would just duplicate L and R to the sides...with a little gain reduction perhaps.

Car audio folks went deep down this path the last two decades. With manual mixing of what goes to the rears, one can beat a lot of upmixing algos. My question was more sides VS rears. Like if you are manually sending signal somewhere, do you send it to 2 behind you speakers, or 4 behind you speakers.

 

[hollis]

Can you please define an 'amazing good 2.0 system', like using a data from ASR?
I have a good 2.0 stereo system in my opinion, but it may be a crap for you... it's a subjective.

Rather, I would say I like both 2.0 and 5.1/7.1 setups. Room EQ does a job for me regarding to a surround sound production.
I am using 5.1/7.1 with A/V receiver for daytime active listing, 2.0 with stereo amp for a nighttime... I may be a minority here.

Sure, lets pick ASR darlings. 2x Dutch & Dutch 8c in front.

Room eq can fix or adjust any given speaker yes. But I dont feel it has any impact on upmixing choices.

 

[sunao]

Wow, that is a dream system! You can do anything what you desire, but still a right room eq is recommended for 5.1/7.1 or 5.1/7.2.4
It does a good job in my honest opinion.

 

[dasdoing]

Like if you are manually sending signal somewhere, do you send it to 2 behind you speakers, or 4 behind you speakers.

yea, I sugested sides. the backs don't make much sense imo. copying to the sides will make the image huge and you still will have the center in front of you. using the backs will be a more headphone like sound. anyways, why don't you just listen to it? what I am saying is that in this usecase I wouln't use an upmixing algorithm, neither the center.
now if you want the total clubfeeling, you downmix to mono and send the signal equaly to LR and backs (not a serious sugestion lol)