Looking out on the net, surround sound music is very sparse. I came up with a handful of WMA 5.1 files, but that's about it.

How come music is so far behind video in regards to surround sound?

edit: Even a 3 channel or 3.1 mix would be cool, to have centered vocals and LFE.

Surround sound is usually used for movies. Movies are meant to mimic real life (to a certain extent) and real life has sound all around you.

Stereo sound is usually used for Music. Music is usually meant to mimic live concerts (to a certain extent) and live concerts are often just barely stereo, let alone surround.


Apart from the occasional techno or Pink Floyd track I wouldn't know much music I'd like to hear in a surround setting to be honest.

Swedish radio has some classical and folk music as well as some radio plays to download. For "normal" classical music the difference to 2.0 is not very big, but I would like to hear something like Berlioz' Requiem where 4 groups of trombones are placed within the audience or some Mahler Symphonies with musicians placed behind the stage or in the back of the audience.

A colleague has a 5.0 recording of "Peter and the Wolf" and "Carnaval des Animaux" where the instruments are grouped around the listener. It sounds quite funny

It's not mixed correctly and there is of little demand for it with occasional live concerts and 5.1 mixes you find on DualDisc's there are quite a few good ones. Most people don't even have a home listening environment for that sort of thing. I heard one great music mix in surround sound and that was about it.

BT's "This Binary Universe" contains a DVD with the album encoded in 5.1...it's quite enveloping.

This is a topic I'm interested in too, so I'll answer your question with another question: what do you hope to achieve with the audio mix?

If you sit down and listen to, say, a person playing a guitar in a room of a certain size, you will hear that sound most directly in front of you. Depending on the room's characteristics, you will hear a diffuse echo of the sound from behind with very little localization. With a Jecklin Disc or head-worn microphones, you can achieve this with startling results, especially with headphones. There are folks who are really into this and there are recordings available - mostly classical, I think.

In other words, are you interested in feeling like you are 'there' in the room while the artist(s) is/are playing, or are you interested in the idea of utilizing the rear and center channels to enhance imaging in a way that would be interesting, if not 'immersive' or similar to a live experience?

FWIW, I have 1 DTS audio recording of a Grateful Dead recording done by a hobbyist. In this case, there was a dull sounding soundboard recording that lacked depth and an audience recording which lacked LF, but had a beautiful ambience. The result is interesting and does give you a feeling of 'being there'. I have also heard of bands re-mixing analog multi-track masters (Grateful Dead, Fleetwood Mac), but have never actually checked one out myself.

My HT receiver has a couple of interesting modes which can simulate surround from stereo and mono sources. I have used it with my DAP for fun, but I rarely sit down in the sweet spot and listen. So, to answer your question, I think that surround audio is less marketed because companies believe that most people (the non-audiophiles) will not sit down in one spot and listen to music, but they will sit and watch a movie because they are immersed visually.

I agree that most music I wouldn't be very interested in hearing in surround, but I recently got my hands on a Quad mix of The Dark Side of the Moon, and it is very interesting to listen to. For those who are interested, there's a bootleg DVD-A floating around P2P networks that is supposedly Alan Parson's original quad mix digitized directly from the 1/2" tapes in 96/24.

Edit: If this post violates TOS9, them I am terribly sorry, please feel free to edit this post. If this DVD-A was released commercially, I'd buy it in a second, but it sadly isn't the case.

That's the album I was thinking of

"Coolness factor" for lack of a better description. In FLStudio (music creation & sequencing app) + ASIO drivers for my sound card, I can make surround mixes of my music. It is a very immersive and pleasant experience, at least to me.

Even a 3 channel mix is interesting, because of the explicit centering. And surround sound setups are not unheard of for PC's, which is where I do the majority of my music listening.. while browsing HydrogenAudio of course.

I think it's quite an immersive experience it's just hard to find to find good 5.1 mixes, but when you do it's quite a pleasent experience it's even better when you are writing music yourself.

<Even a 3 channel mix is interesting, because of the explicit centering>

Are you not getting a center image in stereo?

No future for 3.1

The center is not stable at its place when you move a bit to left or right. A dedicated third channel would improve this.

Just wondering about a thing (notice that I have no idea about eletronics). Assuming that you have a powerful amplifier, isn't it possible to connect 3 loudspeakers to a stereo amplifier in order to fix this problem?

To extract the center channel, fourier-ish operations are needed.
If you only want to send the sum (L+R) to the center, you would have to connect left and right outputs. Amplifiers don't like this at all, either the protection circuit will jump in or it will be damaged

I have the opposite setup where I have a near-field stereo (w/ sub) monitor pair at my PC and I have a 6.1 amp in another room with a 100 inch projected screen (although I only have it set up as 5.1 for now - anybody want to recommend a good rear center channel speaker value?). The theater room is just that; a dark space where one can be immersed into an audio/visual experience. I don't watch movies on my PC and I generally don't listen to music in my theater.

But I can completely understand the 'cool factor'! I remember buying the latest Pink Floyd release and setting up my speakers 'just exactly perfect' for the maximum stereo imaging experience!