"Rock/Pop" MultiChannel shining in Stereo

[Le Concombre Masqué]

There's Nyquist, there's the actual bandwidth limited range in relation with the actual microphones range and arguments for 192 helping reconstructing transients.

 

However there might be a better argument for using even more space disk : multichannel even for stereo. I'm convinced that what I discovered with MCH Electric Ladyland goes far beyond eventual differences in remastering talents or marketing strategies (Bernie Grundman signs the Stereo that is soso while Eddie Kramer signs the MCH ; the latter supervised the gorgeous Mono LP Axis signed by the former who delivers a soso Mono Mix in the recent SACD where the Stereo shines...).

 

Fact is MCH is more than 2.5 x heavier than the Stereo and I bet it's better use of space than 192 vs 96. Maybe it is also due to LFE and engineers daring to go deep low but MCH downfolded into Stereo via HQP offers aural sculptures of the bass line and of the kick drum that are really reminiscent of live gigs impressions. Even soundstage is deeper that what I'm accustomed to.

 

I'm thus starting a journey into MCH (to be played on my stereo) and suggestions and comments are welcome. As of Rock/Pop I start with https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/TabbedPollChart.htm

 

Edited on December the 5th : I have not experimented with Classical or Acoustic Jazz but dig that when MCH aims at recreating natural acoustics, reverb, etc, down mixing to Stereo is a non sense. However, when reproducing (better, those who know say) the natural acoustics of the concert hall  etc is not the goal, ie with Talking Heads, Steely Dan or Bjork, MCH to Stereo offers better bass delineation, smoother and more natural vocals and more noticeable soundstage vs the standard Stereo. 

 

[Le Concombre Masqué]

46 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

Never thought of trying this. So how do you downmix from MCH to 2 channels in HQP? What proportions and what channels mixed into left/right? Are you doing any convolution on these? And is this over speakers or headphones?

Neither did I till I was disappointed by Stereo EL and motivated (I own original Barclay, Track, Reprise LPs...) to hear it better. All answers are a few posts above the last one in the HQP thread and summarised in this picture : convolution, yes ; applied to each channeI (cpu heavy ; ie I don't have the horse power to do it with sacd to dsf rips)  + this is over speakers 

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16 minutes ago, Kal Rubinson said:

How did you arrive at these settings?  Is there any reason to believe that they are generally applicable given that the original multichannel mixes vary so greatly in their balance/distribution?

Those settings were kindly indicated by Miska.

[Le Concombre Masqué]

My guess is that there's a much better encoding of the LF/the LF extending instruments when downmixing 5.1. Anyway, what I hear is a much better delineation and impact of the bass lines, kick drum included.

[Le Concombre Masqué]

11 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

the real issue is whether you think you can do a better job at home, than the mastering engineer did at the console

 

"So you need to ask yourself 'Do I feel lucky today?'"

"Well, do ya?"

I wish all the sarcastic, sometimes preposterous, comments that now abound don't shy away music lovers to unearth their packages, rip the MCH and give MCH to Stereo a try; afaic failed exemples are the minority, such as the recent White Album, better to my ears in 2.0 hires. 

 

The matrix pipeline in HQP is set once ; now I do no job but feeding a mch instead of a stereo one.

 

Convolving separately 6 channels in HQP consistently yields much better results than processing the 2.0 mix with sound characteristics (delineation of bass lines, smoothness and naturalness of vocals, soundstage depth...) in a league beyond mastering differences.

 

I feel like I have just met true Hires.

 

Now, how it fits with Nyquist etc......

 

Maybe esldude will elaborate on "Simple information theory shows more channels of the same quality (even the 50% you babble on about) have the potential for more information than lesser channels.  "

 

 

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3 hours ago, Kal Rubinson said:

As compared to stock stereo, I assume.  Of course, it involves corrupting most of the directional/spatial information that the 6 channel vehicle preserves. ?

Don't think it matters much with Hendrix, Talking Heads (downmixed remain in Light is gorgeous) , Seal, Bjork, Steely Dan, King Crimson... you're probably right if I was to take say a Jordi Savall SACD

[Le Concombre Masqué]

25 minutes ago, Kal Rubinson said:

You would say that since you are speaking from the position of a two-channel listener and the two channel mic array benefits from any such help.  OTOH, playing back the discrete 5 channel recording via a multichannel system preserves the proper directional information in those additional channels and I am speaking from the perspective of a listener who benefits from that preservation.

I'm not on the verge of investing in a 5.1 system made of components in the league of my 2.0 (+ would definitely need a new room/house) but just curious : how many records of musical top value meet your criteria ? I don't care for first rate audiophile recordings of second rate interprets. I bet the Savall are good, the Italiano on Pentatone are excellent in Stereo and I bet the MCH is great too but... how many technically satisfying MCH of interprets in the league of Savall or the Italiano do you know of?

[Le Concombre Masqué]

On 12/6/2018 at 2:25 AM, Kal Rubinson said:

Is there a reason?  All of my comments are referenced to classical music.

Yes and you're certainly right when stating that down mixing classical can't shine ; changing the original title was a way to take yours and others' comments into account and avoid misleading 

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5 hours ago, Miska said:

 

Regardless of the genre. I'm not so much into listening tests using someone else's preferred music, that isn't going to work.

 

Maybe it works better for someone more into X than someone more into Y. Nothing wrong with that either. I'm not expecting any particular correlation.

 

Yet I'd recommend you dig in the Pink Floyd's "Early years" set of Blu-Ray and find 4.0 Atom and Echoes ; well worth the time spent with DVD audio extractor and Mp3tag (tag editor of hires too). 

[Le Concombre Masqué]

almost one year after, at the time of Stereophile's last Music in the Round, it seems that nobody has even bothered to try...

 

My collection has grown to 130...

 

And I definitely wish Rock/pop albums (studio productions when natural acoustics don't matter) would be offered in a down-mixable with standardised values MCH vehicle ; it would make much more sense than 384 as use of space IMO and an improvement while lossy options such as MQA get promoted

 

a kid play, as a moron suggested in the thread ? well, a PITA process for sure, but well worth it

 

btw, I had a doubt about respective channels levels because of the recent Abbey Road BR, feeling that background voices were missing in my down-mix ; they are not in the HD tracks ST or the (different) ST extracted from the Blu-Ray. If they do miss (need to pull my UK original) this would indicate that the ST were taken from the MCH. Still, my 3 times bigger  personal down-mix sounds much better

[Le Concombre Masqué]

1 hour ago, sandyk said:

 There were quite a few multi channel DVD-A that are easily downmixed to Stereo using DVD=A Explorer and still retain quite a surround sensation  with good gear.

 Incidentally, many USA HDTV late shows with Musical performances  are multichannel and easily downmixed to decent stereo using suitable Video S/W if you can  find uploaded .ts streams with UseNet,  or perhaps record them.

not sure those solutions would have triggered me to promote MCH down-mixed but thank you...