On 18 Feb 2006 08:50:58 -0800, "Andre Jute" wrote:


Serge Auckland wrote:

An excellent history of early surround sound

Thank you ever so much, Serge. This is a superb reply. It proves I was
right in the 1970s to decide that surround sound was anoraki and ignore
it.

It may have been then, but it isn't now. Typical of you to ignore the
continuing search for higher fidelity, in favour of an obsolete
technology which was discarded before 1930.

You may have told me and I just didn't make the connection (for
instance, is the current cinema standard a Dolby Digital
implementation?) -- so I'll ask what may appear a really dumb question:
is home cinema sound nominally of the same quality as obtainable from
CD with good hi-fi gear?

Cinemas use mostly DD, with some DTS. These use lossy compression at
(variable) bitrates significantly lower than CD, and DD is not
generally accepted as equal to CD quality. OTOH, DTS at reasonably
high bitrates is well regarded, and DTS 24/96 also exists, which is
superior to CD in every respect.

We use our television set so little that only now are we getting around
to buying a flat screen TV, though all our computers have used LCD
screens for a decade or so now. Our movie DVD player has been used so
little -- we watch movies in my study on my computer's screen, usually
-- that I don't even know if any of its many outputs are lineouts to
which one can attach good amplifiers. It doesn't seem big enough to
have enough good quality amplifiers inside to drive so many channels...

Size is no indicator of quality in 2006, and neither is price, given
the massive amounts of audio processing now available on a single
chip. My 'Chinky cheapie' Pioneer DV-575A sounds as good as any
dedicated CD player I have yet heard, and will play any movie
soundtrack as well as the very best.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering