Sorry for this long rant but I feel a rebuttal is necessary.
1. Back in the 90's you had 480 I video and 16/44 or dolby 2.1 analog audio. Then the sound was crap as was the video so you could get away with a crappy setup. Now we have 1080P video and 24/96 5.1 audio to reproduce. Thus, one can obtain significantly better sound and picture if one has the proper system.
2. I don't know about others, but when I go to a concert I do not wear blinders or have Sonex behind my ears to block out the visual and hall reflections which make up anywhere from 20 to possibly 80% of the sound you are perceiving in a great concert venue. I try to sit as centered as possible in the front third of the hall where the sonics are the best and I can view the way the artists are performing, not just hear them.
3. Thus I try to reproduce that concert hall experience as closely as possible. Using a small television set with large 2 channel speakers would be the equivalent of seeing the orchestra from the back of the second balcony with the sound equivalent of being in an open area with the natural hall reverberance mixed into the front soundstage.
4. With the 5.1 channel 24/96 1080P well engineered concert discs now on BluRay coming out of Europe, at least one gets a sense aurally of whast it is like to be in the concert hall. While I* agree that most of the visuals annoyingly flit from player to player rather than keeping the visual feel that one is sitting in one seat, at least the audio on the best gives me the sound that the conductor is hearing, possiblyb the best seat in the house.
5. We all hear and perceive sound differently depending on our audio upbringing and genetics. I have a friend who finds stereo annoying as he has difficulty integrating a solid image from stereo. Thus he prefers listening to his stereo system from another room. I can just remember the arguments back in the 50's over mono vs. stereo and how stereo would forever muck up the sound.
Most of us came up in the mono to stereo era and became accustomed to the inherent imaging distortion of having the hall sound mixed in with the two front channels. I prefer to have it placed where it belongs; around me through the use of surround channels. Others will prefer to keep it in front changing the sound emanating directly from ther musicians.
6. When I go to see a movie at a theater, I want the best image and sound possible without overloading my senses. Thus I sit as close to the center of the hall as possible with the screen filling my visual field. Unhappily, 90% of the time either some yahoo is talking on his cellphone or the projector bulb is at its life expectancy and the image is darker than night. With my home theater 10 foot diagonal 16x9 screen with an analog 3 tube projector with 7 horn loudspeakers sitting 10 feet away, I can be immersed in either the movie or concert experience as well or popssibly better than being at the original venue. You can't do that with a 30 inch television and 2 speakers.
7. I have been to Romy's and find his audio system to produce the best two channel sound I've ever heard. I just wish he would now go forward and use his expertise to produce a video-surround audio experience to equal it rather than settling for a 1990's setup.
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