I like them both especially now that I’ve been using them more and not listening critically for what they are doing.
I can’t say there is any noticeable difference between PLIIz and DSX height to my ears though others may have a differing opinion.
What I’m really liking the most now (wasn’t sure at first) are the wide channels. My room is somewhat narrow (21x13x8-12 vaulted) with my seating about 15 feet back. With just the front three speakers it creates a weak area in the 360 soundstage between the mains and the surrounds. The wide speakers fill this gap nicely with both ambient (street, office, jungle and other sounds) and directional sounds extended out from the mains. Note that the directional sounds don’t necessarly blend between the mains and the surrounds better when using wides because the audio information going to the wides is only coming from the mains. But they do blend the ambient soundstage between the mains and surrounds nicely.
Depending on your room layout and speaker/seating arrangement wides my not be as big a benefit. In my apartment a 20x20x8 room seating about 6-8 feet back I achieved the best 360 soundstage I’ve ever heard using just 5.1. So if you can already spread your mains out relative to your seating then IMO the wides become less beneficial.
Also the heights seem to add more to the ambience the higher the ceiling and the more reflective the room.
A couple drawbacks I’ve noticed to using wides is that in a few video games like Elder Scrolls: Oblivion the wide don’t just complement the mains they produce the same sounds at the same level. This makes panning across the front 180 soundstage from side to side sound very uneven with large spikes at the mains + wides and a dip at the center and side. I just turn the wides off and run the heights if I find this happening.
The other drawback is that for well recorded, mostly studio music, using the wides messes up the location and “size” of instruments of vocalists. If you like what PLIIx does to 2.0 then this might not bother you but for well recorded material I stick with “direct.” OTOH for concert CD/DVDs, even well recorded ones the wide speakers open up the soundstage making it feel like your right there in the venue.
Let me know how you speakers and seating are arranged and I’m happy to give you my opinion of what might work best for your situation FWIW.
Cheers,
Dean
