Am I hearing things?

[mcdj]

I bought a DVD-Audio of an old favorite symphony. Upon receipt, I was surprised to find it was a surround sound DVD. I converted the AOB files to 24 bit 6 channel Apple Lossless files with DVD Audio Extractor.

The files sounded amazing when previewing them in the finder, but iTunes wouldn't load them. I reconverted to stereo Lossless. The resulting files had none of the soundstage or imaging of the 6 channel files, and they were also far lower in volume. They sounded ok, but rather flat and lifeless compared to the 6 channel files.

My head phones are not 5.1. How was I hearing such a huge difference between the 6 channel files and the plain stereo files in a pair of stereo headphones? And why are the stereo files so quiet by comparison? And finally, is there any way to get iTunes to play the 6 channel files?

Thanks.

 

[gannonsamuel]

My head phones are not 5.1. How was I hearing such a huge difference between the 6 channel files and the plain stereo files in a pair of stereo headphones? And why are the stereo files so quiet by comparison? And finally, is there any way to get iTunes to play the 6 channel files?

Thanks.

I can't say that I know for sure and this would be complete guess, but i recon that converting to stereo it probably just discards all channels except the Left and Right, that would probably explain the differences between the two.

With regards to itunes, google is your friend.

 

[ChrisA]

I bought a DVD-Audio of an old favorite symphony. Upon receipt, I was surprised to find it was a surround sound DVD. I converted the AOB files to 24 bit 6 channel Apple Lossless files with DVD Audio Extractor.

The files sounded amazing when previewing them in the finder, but iTunes wouldn't load them. I reconverted to stereo Lossless. The resulting files had none of the soundstage or imaging of the 6 channel files, and they were also far lower in volume. They sounded ok, but rather flat and lifeless compared to the 6 channel files.

My head phones are not 5.1. How was I hearing such a huge difference between the 6 channel files and the plain stereo files in a pair of stereo headphones? And why are the stereo files so quiet by comparison? And finally, is there any way to get iTunes to play the 6 channel files?

Thanks.

How did you do the conversion to stereo? If you simply delete all but the left and right channels that would explain it. To do the conversion correctly you need to mix the channels back together while adding the exact proper amount of delay.

If you are lucky your DVD has a stereo mix and you can rip that off the CD. Many DVDs do have multiple sound tracks

 

[mcdj]

How did you do the conversion to stereo? If you simply delete all but the left and right channels that would explain it. To do the conversion correctly you need to mix the channels back together while adding the exact proper amount of delay.

If you are lucky your DVD has a stereo mix and you can rip that off the CD. Many DVDs do have multiple sound tracks

I used DVD Audio Extractor and simply chose "stereo".

Sounds like mixing the the 6 channels together is what I'm after, but is there an app that will do it automagically, or do I have to do it all manually with some kind of sound editor? I wouldn't begin to know how to recreate the delay.

There are iTunes friendly tracks on the DVD side (AAC), but they sound like the stereo rip. There's a CD side to the DVD too...I haven't investigated it, but I assume it will also be just plain stereo, as opposed to a 6 channel mix down with delay.

It seems like the only way to get the full experience is to listen to the native 6 channel files outside of iTunes, which is fine at my computer, but I was kind of hoping to load the 6 channel ALAC files onto my iPhone and iPad. I suppose there's probably a 5.1 listening app for iOS out there.