I am a big fan of music mixed in surround. Let's talk about it.
I had high hopes for DVD-Audio as a format, and tried to support it as a consumer. I can still remember the thrill of listening to ELP's "Brain Salad Surgery" in surround, with the synthesizer in Karn Eval 9 spinning around my head. I was hooked!
As usual, though, the (mild) format war between SACD and DVD-Audio, coupled with the advent of mp3 and Itunes pretty well killed those efforts.
Still, when I compare the experience of listening to the normal CD of Porcupine Tree's "Fear of a Blank Planet" to the DVD-Audio of the same disk, it's literally a paradigm shift (at least to my ears). I refuse to believe, with all of the home theaters set up around the world, that there isn't a viable market for music in surround.
The advent of blu-ray, with high-fidelity audio in multiple channels, has once again raised my hopes. Releases like Steve Wilson's "Grace for Drowning" reinforce those hopes.
I read eagerly about the recent "Immersion" reissues of disks by Pink Floyd, Rush and others. However, I have no interest in springing for the whole Immersion package just to get my hands on the surround blu-ray version. I just want to be able to buy disks in surround.
Is it hopeless, or does surround have a chance? What's your favorite surround disk? Care to make a recommendation?
