Hi EAR,
At the risk of playing the devil's advocate, first read my feature "Stereo's Intrinsic Flaw," here:
http://www.axiomaudio.com/archives/stereo.html
Here is part of that article to bolster my position:
Big Two-Channel Flaw
"The other flaw--and it’s huge--which intrinsically limits stereo’s ability to create the sense that we’re in the same acoustic space as the musicians is that all the reverberant information contained on a stereo recording is fired back at us from two speakers at the front of the room. If you think about it for a moment, it never happens that way live in a concert hall, studio, club, or arena. Yes, sound comes from the on-stage musicians directly to our ears (and to the two stereo microphones), BUT it’s also reflected from the side walls, the ceiling and the back wall, and reaches our ears from those directions a few milliseconds later. That tells our ears and brain the size of the acoustic space, the position of the musicians within that space, and our location relative to the musicians. And it’s the directions and delays of those reflected sounds that must be preserved intact--and replayed in your listening room from the same direction. That is what convincingly recreates the illusion of the hall and space. To be fair, two stereo channels will also register those reflected sounds, but they reproduce them from the front of the room, and that’s where the stereo illusion falters."
Because your listening is going to be mainly from 2-channel stereo sources for the forseeable future, I'd suggest you consider using the Axiom Quadpolar QS8 surround speakers rather than direct radiators at the sides/rear. When you use DPLII or Logic 7 to decode many classical, jazz, and live recordings the increase in realism can be spectacular, and you are not limited in your listening position to a fixed sweet spot as you are using direct radiators.
Dry studio recordings that are pan-potted and that have little or no out of phase or reverberant information will seldom benefit from 5.1-channel decoding.
DVD-Audio will likely survive as a niche format. I'm not at all persuaded that SACD will survive, as it requires huge investment in studio gear on the part of recording studios to enable Sony's Bitstream process. At the moment, the sales of vinyl (!) far outstrip those of DVD-A and SACD combined.
I've not heard Von Schweikert speakers, but so far as I'm aware, I doubt the company has the design acumen acquired from several decades at an acoustic facility like the National Research Council in Ottawa, where the Axiom prototypes are measured and tested using rigorous blind and double-blind techniques.
Incidentally, bipolar speakers used for 2-channel stereo produce a very flattering effect but for home theater aren't advisable, as they tend to deliver a somewhat murky and less precise soundstage. Besides, bipolar speakers in the front channels are not used to mix movie soundtracks.
Regards,
