That is quite a system, Mr. Burnham.

I'm not a videophile, but a friend mine - who runs a hifi store - is, and about a decade ago he tried to add to or transition his business to high-end home theater. He demo'd a very impressive system built with Ayre, Lexicon, and Dynaudio gear - very impressive for movies and Telarc orchestral disks. But, he couldn't take his audiophile customers there, not full-on. And most who checked it out went elsewhere, i.e. Best Buy, which could under-cut his price on plasma screens and sell for a fraction a sound thing that was impressive enough. After a while, he concluded, being a small business, it was risky to try to compete, and he went back to concentrating on two-channel music systems. Although that market was then very slow, it was a simpler business. It turned out to be the right call. He's doing okay today with stereo. Surround might have killed him, even though he could sell the concept. Unfortunately, I don't think the big-box retailers have the capacity to build a market like that. They are geared to exploiting a market others make.

It was a good fight, going after a hoped-for reinvigoration of interest in quality sound in a mode that serves more members of the household. Surround sound has promise to teach a new crowd how cool sound can be. The immersive thing is not subtle like stereo, and five little speakers move more air than two little speakers. But, yes, it is more of an interior design commitment than many are interested in. The economy in the US played a negative role, too, starting around 1998 and continuing. Maybe the headphone craze is doing for sound what surround failed to do?

-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Tom Fine
Sent: Friday, April 24, 2015 4:28 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] interesting theory on why 2-channel audio prevailed in the mainstream

Theater attendance has been dropping, at least in the US. Streaming movies are going to kill most of it off soon, if trends continue (of course if Hollywood would make more good movies that large segments of the population want to see, they might have some say in the matter, as demonstrated by the millions of theater seats filled by American Sniper, an unheralded mega-blockbuster). There's always been this talk and claims about "home theaters." I know plenty of audio and video professionals and less than 10% of these people that I know have "home theaters" that include sophisticated surround-sound systems. There just aren't large numbers of people -- or even much of a viable niche market -- interested in more than 2 speakers for sound. I'm one of that tiny niche, but I don't listen to much music-only content with my 5.1 system. It's more of a neato gadget than anything else. I do like viewing the movies that win sound-oriented Oscars each year using the surround system, but most TV and movie watching is done using only the built-in speakers on the TV's. And I'm a person who's very audio-interested, much less interested in picture quality than sound quality. So I can't imagine much of a market for the sound-only surround stuff. I think most of the recent SACD stuff coming out of Japan is 2-channel. There are a few diehards still putting out a few dozen new surround-SACD titles each year, but I bet their sales are in the hundreds of units per title. Perhaps it's a workable business model with those numbers, I don't know the full business picture. Supposedly, multi-channel high-rez downloads are in the offing. We'll see if that's viable. 2-channel hi-rez downloads are a very tiny niche right now, but said to be viable.

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message -----
From: "DAVID BURNHAM" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, April 24, 2015 4:16 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] interesting theory on why 2-channel audio prevailed in the mainstream


>I think the main reason 2 channel audio prevails is the lack of flexibility of where you can sit to 
>listen to surround sound. Surround certainly prevails in movie theatres where the audience is in a 
>position to appreciate it. Also it's easier to design two channel set-ups. My home system has 
>basically the Mark Levinson system. Each channel has two Quad electrostatic speakers mounted one on 
>top of the other with a Decca Ribbon tweeter in between. My woofer department departs from Mark 
>Levinson by using an M. and K. powered subwoofer on each channel. As you can imagine, this speaker 
>system takes up most of half the room and if a surround system took up the rest, there's not much 
>room left for me!
>
>
>     On Friday, April 24, 2015 3:59 PM, Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>
> http://www.americastalkradionetwork.com/category/thd_rssfeed/
>
> check out the theory espoused in the 4/19/15 show -- Steve Jobs and the iPod are what killed
> surround sound! I'd more "blame" the near-zero WAF (wife acceptance factor) for 5 or 7 speakers in
> the living room. Plus the total lack of interest among most TV viewers and music listeners. But, 
> the
> move to earbuds and ultra-portable audio did reduce speaker-based listening in general.
>
> -- Tom Fine
>
> PS -- when you have the president of an audiophile group telling the host of an audio-oriented 
> radio
> show that "no one" listens to surround-sound audio-only content anymore, I would say that bodes 
> very
> badly for any long-term viability for already-niche SACD and Bluray audio formats.
>
>
>
>
>