Dear all,
Greetz from Germany! Great to be part of the squad! After lurking for some weeks, I had to sign in, really great website!
My first experience with surround sound was in the 90s:
Dolby Surround on VHS, AC3 5.1 on laserdisc until the DVD came out. Main usage was for motion pictures, but already realized at that time, that music can also sound awesome in surround (e. g. watching the Blues Brothers movie - btw IMO best version of Peter Gunn Theme ever!).
In 2002 I bought my first own surround gear: a 6.0-system, which seems a bit odd today and I think there has not been much content that took advantage of the rear center. Focus was still on movies, but I also bought various Music-Video-DVDs during the following years. However, apart from some exceptions (Queen, REM), the surround mix was often poor: almost nothing in the rear channels - every AVR can do better upmixes. Many discs were not worth the money...
About 10 years later, I was totally flashed when I first listened to the quad mix of Santana (Abraxas) and DSOTM! These (still) show what is possible and pushed my interest in surround music even more.
The last items I bought were Japan-SACDs of Santana (Caravanserai, Welcome), some DV-SACD (Enoch Light, Tony Mottola, Percy Faith, Floyd Cramer) and AIR - Moon Safari.
Concerning streaming I am right at the beginning, but with the help of the QQ-forum I have already found some interesting releases with excellent surround mix. I love the albums of Sublime and Bob Marley (all) and also enjoy listening to Elton John (Diamonds), Lady Gaga and a lot more.
I have never been listening to Atmos with 2 or 4 speakers in the ceiling, and have only a 5.1-system (with 4 equal floorspeakers) and so an "oldschool" quadraphonic mix sounds best for me.
I favor discrete surroundmixes such as those from Santana, DSOTM and Enoch Light (all quad, all made in the 70s). Of course, these are not the only ones, but my personal reference with respect to the mix (IMO the original DSOTM 4.0-mix is significant better than the 5.1-mix).
Due to this forum, I very recently came across the Tacet-label for classical music in surround. I ordered some discs... OMG, this here is really the money pit!
Looking forward to (hopefully) amazing (discrete) surround releases of the following, among others:
Bob Marley - The Legend lives on
Pink Floyd - The Wall
Massive Attack - Protection; No Protection
Röyksopp - Please Stay (Title)
Sublime - 2nd Hand Smoke
Jamiroquai - Synchronized, Debut
Black Sabbath - all albums from the Osbourne years (not just Paranoid, which is a bit overused for me)
Abba - Gold & More Gold
Metallica - ...and justice for all, Master of Puppets
Supertramp - Crime; Breakfast
Blues Brothers Soundtrack
Iron Maiden - 7th son; Somewhere in time
more from Enoch Light
more from Tony Mottola
Is any of the forementioned already available? Please let me know!
So long