OK, I tried out A Momentary Lapse of Reason Remixed 5.1 on my 11.1.6 system and spent about 1 hour comparing different modes on "Learning To Fly" and to the CD version alone. My final conclusion is thus. Overall, the average mix levels are MUCH BETTER than the original album and surround effects are surprisingly good on that system, regardless of the upmix (or lack thereof) mode. Even the stereo downmix of Learning To Fly wipes the floor of the original 2-CH version, IMO. OTOH, there are a few MAJOR problems on a few of those songs that cannot be fixed on the playback side which ruin a few songs. Notably, the worst offenders, IMO are "On The Turning Away" and "Yet Another Movie". On the former, where a great clear Gilmour vocal suddenly degrades into muddy cow manure when it changes to "It's a sin that somehow, light is changing to shadow". You can hear a clear change to a different vocal take and the levels are low and muddy compared to the opening bit. It stays that way the rest of the song and it doesn't matter how clear the guitars and other instruments are, you can't fix a muddy lead vocal! The original 2-channel version is perfectly fine for the vocals the whole way through. If you listen carefully, you can tell it changes there too, but the difference is it stays clear and loud!
"Yet Another Movie" has and even weirder problem. When the central main bass guitar kicks in shortly after the first delayed bassy piano/whatever sound before the vocals begin, it's like 20x louder than the original CD. While the original version continues that need delayed bass effect across the front, it gets drowned out here by this long sustained bass note from the center that is barely audible past the flurry of notes (sustain dies out). Here it holds on like it's bass feedback or something. It's god-awful sounding and that bass guitar plays at that level the ENTIRE SONG! It drowns out vocals, the Casablanca lines in the background, basically everything is harder to hear than it should be. When it transitions to "Round And Around" you're like grateful as hell as it's gone.... How the hell that could be missed in mixing is beyond me.
Those were the two worst tracks (shame since they're both great songs). But they're not totally alone. "A New Machine" is ruined with screechy/harsh/metallic voice processing that doesn't sound that way on the original CD. It only doesn't ruin everything because it's short and relatively unimportant, IMO.
Signs of Life is fine, if not exciting, but it's hard to screw it up when it's got limited bass to begin with.
One Slip has some funky new sounding rhythm bits, but they're not terrible. The surround is otherwise great on it and I think I can live with it.
Sorrow is fine except they throw the bass guitar very close to Gilmour's vocals in the center (in the home theater there's more vertical separation and so it didn't bother me like it did on the Carver speakers where they seemed to overlap more). Overall, the surround effect works here. Bass is vastly improved compared to the CD.
Learning to Fly is awesome in surround. I have few complaints about the new mix on that one. It was good no matter what mode I used even downmix stereo. Average mix levels compared to the CD are vastly improved and bass is much better. The only weird thing here I think is in the middle bit where the processing is placed on David's voice after the airport talkie bits, it sounds kind of strange in surround (downmix stereo is clearer), but I think that's the original effect being increased in volume and spread out a bit more. It probably could have used a slightly better effect there (just spread the voice out over the room more).
The Dogs of War is not a track I'm crazy about to begin with, especially the slow early part, but I thought this version improved it in that area quite a bit with the surround effects serving as a distraction. The levels were fine here, I think.
Terminal Frost was OK, maybe a tad harsh here and there with the saxophone (same for Dogs of War when the Sax about made me jump out of my seat on the Carvers it was such a sudden loud burst sitting in front of the main speakers), but the surround effects worked well.
Overall, despite a few major faults, I still liked this 5.1 mix better than The Division Bell, but then I like this album overall better than The Division Bell (save a few tracks like High Hopes, but it gets murdered by the lack of punchy bass in surround).
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