wala pang sked pre, papatingin ko sana last weekend kay joan2 yung luxman kaso hindi ako nakapunta dahil kay bush. pwede pala sana last saturday, i was home in the afternoon. anyway, will pm you kung meron nang sked. im planning to visit joan2 this coming sat, baka pwede na sa sunday kung libre.
MUSIC on 5.1ch
After spending a long time just listening to 2ch stereo w/ integrated amps, i switched back to HT with my marantz receiver & kenwood amp. Panalo din sya sa music, esp. in DPL2. One of the strengths of MS is the center speaker. Not only is it crystal clear with movie dialogue, but as a bonus it also sounds very sweet. Circle Surround sounds good - i think it was designed to make an HT setup sound good on music. However, it seems to be making the assumption that you have bookshelf speakers for the fronts - most of the music is coming from the center channel and subwoofer, with the fronts and rears taking care of stereo imaging effects. The result was less bass coming from my front floorstanders. DPL2 has a different strategy - you can control the width of the soundstage, and how much is sent to the center channel. This allows me to have as much bass on the fronts as 2ch stereo, while at the same time get the benefits of better separation on the vocals. The disadvantage of DPL2 at least on my setup is that it makes lesser use of the subwoofer. This could be an advantage if your floorstanders could handle the low frequencies; you save electricity coz you don't have to power up your sub. Verdict: PWEDE!
MOVIES on 2ch
Last week I watched the entire first season of "24 hours" (24 episodes) on 2ch stereo with my MS-908 floorstanders and Sansui integrated amp. I did not use a subwoofer. The experience was different from a 5.1 setup but for me just as enjoyable. You would have to consider (1) the missing center channel, (2) the missing sub, and (3) the missing rear speakers. The missing center is easy to solve by listening in the sweet spot; if you move too far to the left or right the imaging is lost. For the missing sub, having a muscle amp drive my floorstanders helps enough that i didn't miss the sub too much. If i were watching Matrix or T3 i would certainly miss the sub, but for most movies, this does the job. I remember watching on 2.1ch (fronts w/ sub) and it got ever so close to a 5.1ch experience. For the missing rear speakers, i turned on SRS TruSurround on my DVD player. This setting simulates rear speakers using only 2 front speakers. It didn't really feel like there were rear speakers, but it diffuses the sound effects enough that it doesn't seem too obvious that they're coming from the front. Verdict: PWEDE RIN!
