I prefer analog and matrix because the music stays together.
All of the discrete mixes I have heard (even in the theater) have reminded me of the early ping-pong stereo. Most of the CD-4 mixes sounded to me like all of the sounds were at the speakers, with very little sound in between. The process was discrete. I heard sounds in each speaker, but the sounds in each speaker didn't sound like they belonged with the sounds in the other speakers,
Many of the CD-4 mixes I heard were like the SQ five - sounds from each speaker and from center front. And one time I was listening to race cars going around an oval behind the actors in a movie about race driving. With the discrete theater sound, I heard the cars jump from speaker to speaker as they circled the track. When I play the same movie at home in Dolby Surround, the car sounds go around the track realistically.
The problem with discrete is that the ears find the speakers instead of finding where the sound really belongs. Soundtracks can be carefully mixed so that the listener hears the sound move smoothly from speaker to speaker. But this cannot be done without special techniques. Panpotting from one speaker to another does not work for sound images to the sides.
The ideal system for me is one where the speaker locations are not obvious to the ears..
How obvious speaker locations are in discrete depends on the mixing engineer not purposely highlighting speaker locations (e.g. "Snap to" function in Atmos) and how well your speakers match each other in the room and can phantom image in-between well. I use 17 PSB speakers with matched drivers here. Booka Shade's
Dear Future Self in Dolby Atmos does not ping-pong. Sound comes from everywhere in my room (save the floor). The same is true of Yello's
Point (well it does do some symmetry effects you might compare to ping-pong, but the speakers aren't highlighted, just areas of the room and ceiling with other sounds that smoothly move across the ceiling and objects that move in a circle around the room at various height levels, etc.
Those are just two examples. I don't recall ping-pong effects on most surround albums, really. There are some, of course. It's done on purpose. Poor imagination, but a lot of the more blended/matrix stuff is hard to tell where an instrument is coming from at all. Having the cello stretched between the front left and and rear of a 24' long room is weird sounding, to the say the least. Some would say having it pin-point but flying around the room would be even weirder so it probably depends on the material what should be done. More electronic sounding albums don't sound strange with synth sounds flying around, for example.
In multich I've found a big part of the problem is the myth that the rear speakers (or all speakers) needn't be super closely matched. Would anyone expect a 2 ch system to have good imaging if they had different speakers for the L & R? If you really want to get the best surround reproduction from the genius engineers such as Wilson or Parson's, all base speakers should be identical if at all possible. Anything else will produce sub-optimal results.
I would say matching drivers (midrange and tweeter in particular) are more important than the speaker itself, having 4 different PSB models using identical driers or at least extremely similar ones (my rear bed and height speakers have updated versions but match each other despite being tower/bookshelf). Pink noise isn't "identical" in the room (rarely is even with matching speakers since the room has an effect also, but room correction helps), but with real material, I cannot hear any change around the room with callout voices or objects moving around the room.
If you cannot get matching models or drivers, the next best thing is probably matching brand with similar drivers. The worst is probably mixing different brands (save perhaps the subwoofer), although I'm sure there are some similar sounding speakers out there with neutral drivers, but it'd be a bit of a guessing game. The problem is many people already bought bed level speakers and when they go to Atmos they find their manufacturer doesn't really offer anything in-ceiling or on-ceiling without a lot of extra work to make it work rather than being designed for it so they buy a popular in-ceiling speaker set and then wonder why the layers stick out like a sore thumb. Some even like that because it's easier to hear overhead sounds when used.
I often have a hard time telling from mains from partial from heights because sometimes the base layer can image high on the front wall even without the heights engaged. I was watching
Raiders of the Lost Ark in Atmos last night and found it to be a piddly conservative mix that rarely uses the overhead speakers and even when I think it does, it may not because of that effect. Too many movies are disappointing because they're afraid to use the overhead speakers and sometimes even the surround speakers in a very noticeable manner (old school rule that surrounds should not be "distracting" that infuriates those of us that want actual "immersive" sound).
