Hello,

I just went to the symphony and heard Holst's "The Planets" again in a marvelous symphony hall. It was inspiring and blew my old 2 channel version away.. Could anyone suggest a 5.1 version that is fantastic?
Thanks in advance!

I usually put my receiver in Dolby PLIIx Music mode which makes use of the surround speakers for The Planets.

My version is The Planets / Mehta, LA Philharmonic one of the best I've found.

King, apparently the performance that you heard was outstanding(care to tell us more?), and the sound plus overall experience of attending a live performance can never be totally duplicated at home. What disc do you presently have? You certainly should apply DPLII or similar processing to extract the natural surround ambience from the front channels and send it to the surrounds where it belongs, making the home listening experience a little more realistic.

Of the six versions of The Planets that I own(I've listened to about fifteen others)my first preference is the Mehta performance, followed very closely by the Dutoit(both sound excellent in surround). Although there are six versions available in SACD, in my view none of the performances are the equal of the Mehta or Dutoit, and wouldn't suggest buying one simply because of the SACD format.