Most audiophiles prefer 2-channel where you have a forward soundstage but when you go to a live performance, it's not just about soundstage width, height and depth. There is also a rear soundstage that represents the acoustical reflections of the venue. With good multi-channel, the goal isn't to hear musicians performing behind you because that certainly would not represent any live event that I attend. Rather, the rear and side channels are supposed to provide you the natural ambience and the reflections that you might hear at Carnegie Hall, for example, even if your listening room is only a fraction of the size of Carnegie Hall. I have heard some really good multi-channel recordings that definitely provide a greater sense of "you are there" and so the goal with good multi-channel isn't "artists in the room" like it is with 2-channel but rather "listener transported to the venue." Even the applause and the inadvertent coughs and sneezes that emanate from the rear channels can contribute to the illusion that you are sitting 5th row center if you close your eyes. In this sense, the experience can truly be genuinely immersive and transfixing. Listen to the 2-channel vs multichannel versions of Magnificat by 2L in your home theater and be prepared to be more convincingly transported to the Nidaros Cathedral in Norway with the multichannel version. The problem is there aren't many good multi-channel recordings to make this expensive venture worthwhile for most manufacturers and consumers.
There happens to be one DAC manufacturer who believes there is a market for a high-end multichannel DAC and this DAC happens to be their most expensive product:
http://www.msbtech.com/products/masterDetail.php?Page=platinumHome
Hello again romaz.
Well there are some works where there can be instruments also from the back channels with mch. One such example is the LSO LIVE Berlioz Requiem from ST Paul´s Cathedral, where the brass in the Dies Irae are sounding from " all four corners" so to say.
My most impressive live concert of Berlioz´s Requiem was live in Salzburg many years ago also with the brass in all four corners. It was maybe the most "Eargasmic Experience" I have ever had.
And as you say 2L´s recordings are also very immersive in mch.
I´ve worked on two of Morten´s productions as photographer and both being right in the choir in Nidaros and the Chamber Orchestra in Selbu church were truly immersive experiences. And of course the recordings sound much closer to live heard in mch than plain stereo.
But good as mch can be under ideal circumstances my preference is still the lowest possible distortion and big full range speakers with lots of watts powering my music.
A full mch system of the similar SQ and fffr as my current stereo system would add at least another 20k in price for speakers and amping alone,not to mention the space needed for five big electrostatic speakers instead of two.
But the first SonoruS Holographic Imaging recording from Yarlung shows some promise for more accurate spatial sound than plain stereo at least. But one has to get used to listening to tape hiss a bit again,SonoruS is rendered via a tape recorder somehow.
Especially the string quartet and the voice and piano sound very realistic and at times, listening with closed eyes, almost the only thing telling my senses I have not been transported to the venue is the slight tape hiss audible.
Just as with headphones there are imho, no other speakers except some planars that image as perfectly realistically as electrostatic speakers. And no other speakers I have heard do it with lower distortions and as seamlessly as electrostatics.
Cost and room size no object, I would own either 5 Gryphon Pendragons or 5 ML Neoliths and mch amping and an mch DAC of SOTA quality.
And considering how much effort Rob Watts puts into recreating accurate depth and space, it is surprising there is no mch DAC from him yet.
There are as far as I know only two ways of delivering those things as close as possible to the real thing,and they are with speakers mch with at least 4 channels and via headphones binaurally.