I went with a 5.1 system for High Definition TV watching as well as DVD watching.
The music concerts are esp. good in DTS or 5.1 Dolby.

But what do you listen to your old (or new) music CD's in?

I just used 2 speaker mode at first at that is likely what they were first designed for, but my receiver (H-K) has so many options.

Which settings give good results? Or do many of them just channel the same stuff through the fronts, centers, rears, etc?

I use plain stereo if I'm sitting in the sweet spot, and all-speaker stereo during gatherings or when moving around the room with some other task. I've never liked any DSP settings when listening to music.

je

plain stereo
I agree. For stereo CDs, plain 2 channel, flat frequency response, and none of the DSP gimmick effects - they just make it sound BAD.

It's no different than anything else audio. Use what sounds best to you.

I use either plain old stereo, or a DSP proprietary to my processor, AnthemLogic. Usually I use the AnthemLogic because I think it gives a very nice, subtle effect to 2-ch music. Not at all overblown or gimmicky.

FWIW, parameters of many DSP modes are adjustable if you want to dial down (or up) the effects.

I agree with "Plain stereo" and "Whatever sounds best to you"

I use a Lexicon with a mode called "Panoramic". It's not just 2-channel stereo. They do some interesting phase cancellation stuff. It might not be "right" but it makes some stuff sound better to my ear. I am trying to ween myself off of it.

EQ flat, Slight bump with reverb, 1 click in bass, Treble flat. This after the whole speaker set-up, SPL meter Balance routine. I use 2ch, Or Rotel 7.1 Extended stereo.

I went with a 5.1 system for High Definition TV watching as well as DVD watching.
The music concerts are esp. good in DTS or 5.1 Dolby.

But what do you listen to your old (or new) music CD's in?

I just used 2 speaker mode at first at that is likely what they were first designed for, but my receiver (H-K) has so many options.

Which settings give good results? Or do many of them just channel the same stuff through the fronts, centers, rears, etc?

If you are curious about them, experiment with the different possibilities. I personally like listening to 2 channel sources with 2 channels, but many people love using DPL II or some other setting. Once you settle in to what you think you like best, you might want to enjoy that for a while, and then experiment again, because some effects may be enjoyable for a time, but become less enjoyable after getting used to them.

i have an onkyo tx-sr 705, with a plethora of settings. i have an old rotel rcd-855 digitally connected and listen to cd's in a setting called Neo Music 6. this sorts the digital stream into a multi-channel signal, and i think its fantastic. i also use it for cassette tapes...whoda thunk? the signal sorts into a nicely proportioned front soundstage, with ambient/hall/recording space coming from the rears. very nice, to me...quite immersive

I have been multi-channel free for nearly ten years. It always drives me nuts to go to someone's house where they listen to music in Pro-logic or some whacky stadium mode, especially since those are typically the same people who have no idea how to calibrate a multi-channel system. I am all for each to his own, but EGADS!

My $99 salvage store Insignia has a "matrix" setting that, with careful setting of rear levels, sounds pretty neat with both CD & vinyl. The various Pro-Logic settings, along with the faux "hall", "stadium" & the like are way overkill.

I too use Straight stereo for Vinyl or cd's .

Not sure if you are either a stelley dan or Doors fan ? But Donald fagen's "nightfly trilogy" box comes with all 3 albums in DTS 5.1 , most amazing sound i have ever heard come out of my stereo , The Doors also did a boxed set with all 6 albums mixed in 5.1 DTS , creepy hearing Jim singing coming out of the center speaker

My Lexicon preamp does include various surround modes, such as Panaramic, Music Logic, Logic 7, etc. that do a better job for music than other surround preamps (and most certainly receivers) that I've encountered, but at the end of the day regular ole stereo sounds best to my ears. Has anyone else found that with most surround equipment playing music in a surround mode the first casualty is dynamics?

Puh-leese! Stereo only...preferably on bypass to eliminate all processing possible.

I have never heard any multi-channel music I thought was worth listening to.

With a really good set of primaries, I don't need or want any additional sources.

My Lexicon preamp does include various surround modes, such as Panaramic, Music Logic, Logic 7, etc. that do a better job for music than other surround preamps (and most certainly receivers) that I've encountered, but at the end of the day regular ole stereo sounds best to my ears. Has anyone else found that with most surround equipment playing music in a surround mode the first casualty is dynamics?

No. The way Dolby Pro Logic (DPL) works, it has no impact on dynamics in the front channels, though, of course, some other type of processing may. With DPL, the center channel is derived from what is the same and in phase in both the right and left channel, and the surround channel is derived from what is the same but 180 degrees out of phase. Whatever is different in both channels (other than just different in phase) is fed directly to the right and left front with no processing. In the case of the surround channel, it is frequency limited and noise reduction is applied to it. DPL II works a little differently, with which different degrees of out of phase are used for the right and left rear channels, and there is no frequency limiting for the rear channels.

The original intention for DPL involved encoding material to be reduced to two channels in a particular way to be able to be retrieved (or decoded) later.

DPL is a matrixed format. "Matrixing" is a troublesome word, in that it is used to describe two different processes. The kind of matrixing that is done with Dolby Pro Logic (and the center rear channel in Dolby Digital EX and the matrixed version of dts-ES) is where they take, in the studio, more channels than the finished product can contain, and mix them down in a special way to fit on those fewer channels. To make life simpler, let us confine our discussion for the moment to Dolby Pro Logic.

With DPL, they have 4 separate channels in the studio. The front right, front left, front center, and rear (also called "surround", which is why it is "S" in the quote below). These four channels are then mixed together down to two channels in a special way:


The L and R inputs go straight to the Lt and Rt outputs without modification. The C input is divided equally to Lt and Rt with a 3 dB level reduction (to maintain constant acoustic power in the mix). The S input is also divided equally between Lt and Rt, but it first undergoes three additional processing steps:
• Frequency bandlimiting from 100 Hz to 7 kHz.
• Encoding with a modified form of Dolby B-type noise reduction.
• Plus and minus 90-degree phase shifts are applied to create a 180 degree phase differential between the signal components feeding Lt and Rt.

From:
http://www.dolby.com/uploadedFiles/zz-_Shared_Assets/English_PDFs/Professional/208_Dolby_Surround_Pro_Logic_Decoder.pdf

Your DPL decoder at home reverses this process to give you 4 channel sound from a two channel source. This whole scheme was developed for theaters to use, so that there would only need to be two channels of sound on the film. There was not room on the film to easily add more channels, and also, this way, they could use existing projectors with two channel readers, which then feed the signal to a special decoder. But it also is perfect for two channel VCRs and 2 channel sound on analog TV.

Now, of course, they can do sound differently than when DPL was invented, and they can keep the channels totally separate from each other. Dolby Digital and dts (in their 5.1 versions) do just that.

Basically, the matrixed Dolby Digital EX and the matrixed dts-ES mix the rear center channel in the right and left rear in a manner similar to how the front center channel is mixed into the front right and left in DPL.

Now, finally, we can get to the other idea of matrixed sound, and that is where you make up channels that never existed in the original recording studio. This is what happens, for example, when you apply DPL IIx to an ordinary two channel CD. The recording studio did not have a mix for 7.1 sound; they had a two channel mix. The processing that is done at home in this case moves sound that was intended for the front right and left speakers to other places. Hence, it re-directs, or mis-directs, the sound to other places. Now, whether this creation of previously non-existing channels is a good thing or a bad one is a matter of preference. But it simply is not what was originally mixed, whereas the result of using DPL on a DPL encoded movie soundtrack is not creating any new channels that did not previously exist, but is only recreating what was in the mixing studio before it was forced onto only two channels.

So, if one uses DPL II or DPL IIx on a soundtrack that was originally encoded as DPL, one is re-directing, or mis-directing, sound to where it originally was not intended to be. Whether you like the result or not is what should determine whether you do this or not. But do not imagine that you are simply decoding the sound; you are processing it in a way that was not intended when it was originally recorded. It is like using "Hall" or "Studio" or some other DSP mode to process the sound in a way that is, hopefully, pleasant.

So, with DPL, things are redirected, and with the rear, if we are talking about something not encoded with DPL (like a typical CD or LP), this redirecting of the sound is misdirecting it, as it was originally intended to all come from the front. Again, one may or may not like the results of doing this, but it is good to understand what is going on.

Unfortunately, most companies don't really explain what their DSP modes actually do, so when one is using "hall" or some other setting in a processor (or receiver), it can be a bit difficult to figure out what, exactly, it is doing. But in the case of an ordinary 2 channel source, it was originally intended to all come out of just two channels.


As an aside, I very much like multichannel music that was recorded that way, like on many SACDs and DVD-Audio discs, but I don't like processing the sound to add more channels than are originally there. To me, it subjectively results in a loss of clarity and focus (well, of course, the sound is coming from somewhere it isn't supposed to!). But many people enjoy processing sound to add extra channels, and they are free to do so.

I listen to two-channel CD and LP in either two-channel stereo, Dolby Pro-Logic II or Circle Surround modes. Depending on the source material, one of those modes will sound best. The two-channel to multi-channel synthesizers can really enhance or degrade the sound, again, depending on the source material and my listening mood. So, my advice is to try Dolby Pro-Logic II and see what you think. You will not damage anything and you might just find that you like the sound much better than listening in ordinary two-channel mode.

Also note that Dolby Pro-Logic II does a pretty good job of decoding SQ encoded quadraphonic records and tapes.

When I used to run surround sound, and only had a surround sound receiver (which I can't imagine now...times have really changed for me) I would listen to straight stereo with no FX of any kind, 5 channel stereo, which was fun but sounded false, and 'matrix' which seemed to function a lot like my father's Dynaquad system..throwing reverb to the back. Again, fun for what it was. After re-discovering stereo, i've done a 180 (instead of 360?) and don't even run surround for movies. My main speakers image so well that the other speakers seemed kind of redundant. I would say that surround still sounds better for movies, but I listen to music so much more than watching movies that I decided the compromise would be on the movie side now, when it used to be on the music side. Good luck...it's all a matter of what you like.

I listen to two channel sources in two channel mode.

Try all the variations available to you, and decide what sounds best for you, with the system & room you have. For me, I periodically try different mode variations, to test myself & my system, and for a little variety. If you're asking what sounds best to me when listening to my system, the 2-channel sounds best when listening to stereo. Even tho the modes are fun to experiment with, some music details are lost in the signal processing.

Puh-leese! Stereo only...preferably on bypass to eliminate all processing possible.Denon's and Yamaha's and I'm pretty sure HK's have what Denon calls Direct and Pure Direct modes. The Direct eliminates any video processing and Pure Direct goes one step further and turns off the display as well. I use the Direct mode as I like the display on.

I noticed the OP hasn't been back since the first post...

Sorry , have not responded. Your comments are all very helpful. I think for music I am enjoying two main speakers with the sub woofer and the center and surrounds off.

Denon's and Yamaha's and I'm pretty sure HK's have what Denon calls Direct and Pure Direct modes. The Direct eliminates any video processing and Pure Direct goes one step further and turns off the display as well. I use the Direct mode as I like the display on.

I noticed the OP hasn't been back since the first post...

Yeh , i have a denon with the Direct mode which is great .

My listening mode is directly tied to the type of music.

For me, Jazz must be 2 channel. Anything else sounds wrong.

Folk Music and solo instrument performances are the same. Acoustic guitar especially gets too much of a wandering sonic image when processing is enabled.

Pop and Rock frequently sound quite good in Dolby Pro-Logic II. I'll go back and forth between Cinema and Music modes (of Pro-Logic II) depending on the era of music or music choice channel I'm listening to. But I will frequently just turn it off altogether and listen in straight stereo.

New Age music loves Pro-Logic Music mode.

I mostly listen to Stereo also.Somtimes I do use Pro Logic 1&2

I also like this one Mode my Kenwood Has Called "Stadium" I like it because its not reverb or echo it just adds a slight delay to the surround channels and add ALOTTTT of bass out the subwoofer, so much that most would scratch there heads and say "is that much bass even possible?" LoL

These also this one Mode on my Kenny called Disco but I actully think its there OWN attempt at a Pro Logic 2 type format because it has a very different sound to it not like anything I have ever heard, and most of the time I prefer it over Pro Logic.