> You're assuming that incoded 2 channel material is being played
through a
> good decoder. Personally, I have only poor decoders


But what if in the future you might get better ones? There was no
way to really predict that PLII was going to be so awesome,
especially given that PLI was, well, not awesome. PLII is great for
decoding old quad encoded material. And, as I've said before, it's
also great for turning regular stereo into multi channel, and many
regular stereo recordings, depending on how they were recorded,
mixed and mastered, can come out more quad sounding than even some
discrete quad materials. One of my hobbies at the moment is turning
regular stereo 8-track tapes into multichannel listening
experiences. The first Synergy album, IMO, decodes out with PLII
into a much more satisfying and dazzling 6.1 than the regular
discrete q8.

I remember when they were first putting DTS decoders in regular amps
along with DD 5.1. It sounded like crap. You had to go outboard to
get any decent DTS. But now, even dirt cheap amps have really decent
DTS decoders built in.

This stuff changes really fast.

Anyway, I'm not arguing here, these are both good plans and ways of
going about doing things. I sort of wish I had the ability to encode
to DTS, if only so that I could do my own "remixes" of old source
material according to my own wishes, especially old VHS concert
recordings I have. In some cases, what I can produce remastering the
stereo and then tweaking with PLII is a lot more satisfying than
some of the commercial 5.1 releases on DVD.

I would love to hook up with other people who do this kind of thing.
Imagine a contest to see who could come up with the coolest,
quaddiest 5.1 remixes of Beatles albums? There are some albums out
there that just scream for this kind of treatment. Imagine having a
contest for the best remix of ELO _El Dorado_ and then everyone gets
a copy of the winner? Kind a of a cool hoby thing to do.

One of the things that makes this possible is the tremendous
advances in software for recording an remastering old source
material, vinyl and tapes, to clean up the pops, crackles and hiss,
and brighten up dullness through remastering and aural excitations.

All these changes have really opened wide all our options and
possible experiences, also allowing us to go back and rediscover old
recordings that we thought we knew. Case in point, Saturday I was
experimenting with matrixing out a stereo 8-track copy of Gentle
Giant _Power and the Glory_ and I discovered a recorder part I'd
never heard on one track. It was buried in the mix, and though I'd
heard the album many dozens of times on vinyl, CD, and 8-track
stereo, I had never heard that particular instrumental part before,
not until it was tweaked out with PLII. Similarly, the massive
overdubbing in Zappa's _Uncle Meat_ album gets sort
of "deconstructed" with PLII so that you can hear not only each
musical part more distinctly, but also much more distinct are the
recording characteristics for each part, timbre, speed, amberture,
reverb, etc, that was never possible before now.

It's truly a great time for multi-channel sound, better than it has
ever been.

Now what I need is to find a copy of that Porcupine Tree DVD-A. Also
an affordable DVD-A/SACD combo player.