High Definition Audio is misunderstood!

[jrrosas]

Guys,

do you have any other comment regarding a good movie or scene of a movie to hear the difference between DD 5.1 and PCM Uncompresssed 5.1 ?

Thanks

[btf1980]

I wouldn't even bother with those types. Explaining is pointless, and more often than not, it's unwanted. They have their minds made up already, just let them revel in their ignorance. It's not your job to enlighten others.

[jrrosas]

You are right, even if I explain the most detailed of the explanations she just doesn't care but she enjoys watching movies just like me so that helps so I just want to hear, oh yeah, that's sounds much better. anyway, that's just me..

[neckedness]

Can someone explain why uncompressed volume is much lower than DD?

[jsteinhauer]

Originally Posted by jrrosas

Guys,

do you have any other comment regarding a good movie or scene of a movie to hear the difference between DD 5.1 and PCM Uncompresssed 5.1 ?

Thanks

I don't think you need a special scene. If you have a good receiver and speakers, you should instantly hear a difference between DD and PCM. I would liken it to taking off a pair of sunglasses in a normally lit space.

Originally Posted by jrrosas

You are right, even if I explain the most detailed of the explanations she just doesn't care but she enjoys watching movies just like me so that helps so I just want to hear, oh yeah, that's sounds much better. anyway, that's just me..

The best ones to sell lossless surround, IMO are actioners. Try recent ones, like War. Another one I saw recently was Mr. Brooks. When the wife and I jump out of the seat at the same time, or when she goes "oof!" (gunshots, etc.) I know it's appreciated.

[beavis667]

Blood diamond comes to mind as a good example of good PCM lossless audio. I watched that movie before and after I picked up equipment capible of playing lossless audio within about a 2 week period and the movie was much more immersive the 2nd time around.

One thing you will notice with the lossless tracks is rumbly, well defined bass. To me, that's kind of "par for the course" for lossless audio. There are DVD's that have good bass....DTS to get near the quality of lossless bass, but in the end bass is rumble. Where lossless tracks really shine are in the mids and highs. The gunshots in Mr. Brooks come to mind. Those are the most realistic sounding gunshots I've heard in a movie to date for me. Back to Blood Diamond, some of the background music and sounds in the movie were plain stunning.

I'm not particularly wowed by surround sound. I expect there to be surround effects, but maybe 1 in 5 movies will really make me go "whoa that surround effect was awesome". I think audio quality is >>>>>> in importance to good surround effects...that's just me. However, there is a scene in Fantastic Four, Rise of the Silver Surfer that has exceptional surround imaging. During the wedding scene a helicopter flies in, circles around, and rises out of site. The lossless track has noticably better imaging in this scene. The chopper circles around and then rises out of sight. It's easy to make the chopper sound like it is to your back right when you have a speaker at the back right. This chopper does a seamless circle around the room, and then you hear it rise 20 feet above your living room before the sound fades off. It's during the wedding scene between Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman. Check it out.

As food for thought, people trying to justify spending more money than they are used to on an audio system, good speakers go a long way. Nothing in your AV system will outlast speakers in terms of viable use time. There are 30 year old Klipsche and Infinity speakers that are just as warm an vibrant as their counterparts available today. When you go to buy speakers and feel reluctant because the ones you want cost more than you thought, know you are buying something you can keep for 20 years...while you will probably replace your surround receiver 2-3 times in that time period.

[Knight-Errant]

Originally Posted by neckedness

Can someone explain why uncompressed volume is much lower than DD?

Dynamic range?