On 14/04/2012 04:27, JEFF SILBERMAN wrote:
.. soundstage envelopment and spaciousness)! Indeed, I would never replace my 3 front loudspeakers with a quadrilateral layout. Why three-speaker stereophony never became an end in itself is a mystery to me. It is not nearly as financially and logistically burdensome as surround sound and yet its benefits are very tangible.
I would have thought the answer to that was fairly simple - the choice is simply not available in the places the general public buys hifi, such as: http://www.richersounds.com
Note for example that you see listings for either stereo systems or Cinema systems. Anything that involves buying some extra piece of kit, such as a decoder, is out of the question - too complicated, and visibly more expensive. You need a do-everything amp with sufficient outputs at the back, and a simple switch offering, say, stereo, 3-ch stereo, quad, 5.1 (etc., with built-in automatic up-mixing if required - folk may shudder at the thought, but just deal with it). And packages not just of matched pairs of speakers, but matched triplets and quads of speakers - triplets being the "weird" combination for shops and customers alike.
And of course those who do venture into 'real' hifi showrooms need to be able to hear such systems demoed, ~outside~ anything to do with cinema.
Richard Dobson _______________________________________________ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
