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RE: Why is surround sound not "high end"?

Many years ago, at the 'dawn' of 4 channel....I experimented with the Dynaquad system. You could buy an add-on box with 4 speaker outputs.
I saw the schamatic and realized you could hook up speakers from + to + and derive the 'difference' information. A pair of speakers in series did fine. I ran 2 amps so I could bias the level front / rear easily. No remotes in 'dem days, either.
Point? Live recordings were terrific. The ambiance of the recording venue came thru perfectly. It was like sitting IN the crowd. The band remained front / center but crowd noise and reflected sound were life-like. Keep in mind this was with a pair of JBL4311s front of an SAE power amp and my Kenwood and RSL 3600s (JBL 4311 copies) in the rear.
Later, when amps went to 4 discrete channels, you had stuff like QS or SQ 'matrix' and a few other synthetic programs.

Studio stuff, however, was flat. All from the front with NO surround feeling at all. Could these old recordings be 'fixed' if the multi-channel masters still exist?

Now, using the right mic from a good position in a live environment almost automatically yields the out of phase portion of the signal which comes out of the rears.
While a good engineer can add this back in, I suspect and make is seamless, I can't imagine all the crushed dynamics re-releases this could lead to in going over the vintage stuff from the 60s on.

So, it would appear that multi channel CAN also be Hi-End. Now, Anyone up for an all-Maggie HT setup? Just imagine the logistics of such a setup. A big stack of (fill in blank) amplifiers. Dedicated power for 'em. You'll need it. Signal processing pre. I have no idea about source. Computer maybe?

If anyone in SoCal has a good setup, invite me over for a listen.
Too much is never enough


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