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Your Best Sounding 5.1 DVD's DVD A's and SACD's.

Started by intruder, Thu, 2006-12-14, 11:41:23

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intruder

This one is really for those, who watch and listen to their DVD's with a 5.1 surround system. If you do not have a 5.1 surround system (and by 5.1, I mean a system with a 5.1 Dolby Digital AC3 amp or decoder, not Dolby Prologic) Then I do recomend you get one in the future, as its quite mind blowing in sound, and in some cases like sitting in the audience. Its also great for films too, I have seen horror films in the past (which by the way, to me they are all comedies  ;D) on my TV and not jumped one bit. Then I have watched the same film again through 5.1 sound and left my seat literally, because the only thing in a horror movie that makes you jump is the sound effects.

For those who do not know what it actually is, I will briefly explain. Now everyone as a stereo these days I presume (unless your in some remote place of the world or Vincent Van Goff) and no doubt realises that the sound comes out of 2 speakers. you will also notice that stereo can produce different sounds out of each speaker. This is because of 2 seperate channel amplifiers built inside whatever system you have. Now back in the 70's, they actually went better than this by making an amplifier with 4 seperate channels inside, this was called Quadrophonic. But it was only on the shelves for a couple of years, and not many vinyl albums were made in this format, and it was rather expensive to buy a system to play them on, hence the reason why it soon became extinct. Now these days we have 5.1 which is an amplifier consisting of 6 seperate channels, and they are sorted out thus. 2 speakers the left and right front (just as in stereo) 2 speakers the left and right rear (even more stereo and very important) 1 speaker for the centre (known as a dialogue speaker for voice but can be used in many other ways) and 1 speaker for the bass (known as a subwoofer) Now a lot of you might be thinking were the hell am I gonna stick all of them, and you would be right, because it is totally pointless sticking them all together one side of the room. Because to hear the benefit of a system like this, you have simply got to make way for it, and set the speakers up the way shown in the digram to get any benefit out of this system. The whole point of a system like this, is about seperation. The more channels you have the more freely intruments can be be displayed, but I would say that a 5.1 system is enough for any band. And systems like these come cheap these days, you can actually by DVD players that come with the whole shebang for a couple of hundred bucks, though I must point out, you only get what you pay for and nothing more. But never the less it will sound a lot better than listening to a DVD just on your TV.

Whats Your Favorite 5.1 DVD's & Why

MY Number one sounding DVD I have to date is Minimum Maximum By Kraftwerk

The reason for this one is the use of the multichannel panning it's totally awesome. Other contenders I have in my collection are Jarre In China/Jean Michel Jarre. Two Against Nature/Steely Dan. Hell Freezes Over/Eagles. My favorite DVD Audio Discs would have to be Night At The Opera/Queen & Aero/Jean Michel Jarre once again because of its panning, and also the fact that I do not own a lot of this format. Also I do stress that these discs are also in DTS and will certainly utilise the whole of your speakers system. I would also like to draw attention to both Arena DVD's Caught in the Act and Smoke and Mirrors, both of which are of great production in 5.1. On the caught In the act DVD we get music rather than just the audience coming out of the back speakers, particulary on the butterfly man and in parts of contagion which is a marvel and hits you on the back of the head in parts. Where as the smoke a mirrors dvd really makes you feel at home and sitting with the audience, by just concentrating on the audience being in the back speakers and the band on the stage.

I would like to point out the reason for me bringing up this topic, is that hopefully I will get some feedback on what other peeps have in multi surround and would recomend, because there are a lot of dvd's out there that can dissapoint you done in this format, simply because the sound engineers have not done a very good job, and they tend to rush things out these days with DTS stamped on it, when it's not worthy of being put out at all. Especailly the older stuff. But don't get me wrong, there is some great old stuff put out in this format which is brought back to life, for example Led Zeppelin 2003, you would have thought that it was made today rather than in the 70's, a shear superb production on that one