No, I'm not putting my ear up to 1 speaker. I just walk to 1 corner of the yard where I hear mostly the speaker in that corner & the pumping is pretty clear. It sounds "OK" in the middle of the yard, not nesessarily great. Besides, why can't I just listen to 1 speaker. Us old quad guys always did that in the 70's to hear what individual instruments were coming out of each speaker. That was always part of the quad experience back in the day. With discreet quad recordings you could isolate just the drums, maybe just the bass, maybe just the rhythm guitar etc. For example, I never knew there was a banjo in the Doobie Brothers song "Listen to the Music" until I heard the quad mix & isolated the rear right speaker. As a musician, myself & my friends loved to "disect" quad mixes.
As I mentioned, for decoding SQ, RM, QS etc, the surround master is excellent !! I bought 2 of them just for that purpose. Old SQ & RM recordings from the 70's almost sound like discreet, CD-4 recordings when played through it. On the other hand, playing stereo recordings through the "involve" mode ................. ??????????? ..............You should be able to walk to a corner of your yard (or living room) & hear crisp, clear, clean sound coming out of each individual speaker. I've had friends over & had them ask me : "Why does this speaker sound strange ?" when they went close to one speaker.