Super Furry Surround Sound

I'm currently listening to the new Super Furry Animals album, Love Kraft. It's too early for me to tell if it's any good or not, track one has yet to finish. The CD is quite unusual in that it's a dual format CD/SA-CD. The SA-CD version is remixed in 5.1 surround sound. Unfortunately, despite having at last count around 9 separate devices that'll play CDs, I don't have anything that will play SA-CDs so the delights of the 6 channel version will be lost on me for a while yet. Thinking about it, I barely even know what a SA-CD is!

But you know, it's still kinda cool.

My favourite SFA album was Rings Around The World. I bought that one on DVD, and could listen to it in 5.1. It was kinda cool, though it was slightly limiting it being on DVD rather than CD (I only have five devices that'll play DVDs...). In the end I just ripped a copy of a friend's CD version (in case the RIAA are reading, that was a JOKE...). It was fun sitting immersed with the music coming from all around but there is an extent to which you need to be in the right place. Surround sound doesn't give you as much scope for wandering aimlessly around the room in your underwear, at least not if you want to hear the music as it was intended to be heard.

So my conclusion here is that although surround sound 5.1 music is kinda cool, it's also kinda a waste of time. Not to mention the problems you'd have getting it to work with headphones. You'd need to put an extra earphone in each eye, one in your mouth and a big subwoofer headphone up your... well, somewhere out of the way.

I remember going to a Super Furry Animals concert once when they'd set the whole thing up with quadrophonic sound - the standard two front speakers but also some completely separate rear speakers (at the rear if my memory serves me well). Again, it was fun for a bit but after a while the novelty wore off.

So my conclusion (it turns out the first conclusion wasn't actually a conclusion after all. I should plan these posts better, or indeed at all) is that (aren't all these brackets irritating?) stereo is all you need. I've often argued that since we only have two ears, it's really quite pointless sending more than two different things into them as each ear only has one hammer and stirrup and so can only produce one channel of sound. the music may start as six channel but it's just two by the time it hits my brain. In fact, I only have one brain so maybe it's just one channel after I've processed it and my conscious mind registers it. Surround sound is an illusion. There are no rear sounds. There are no front sounds. There is only left and right.

And I am correct on that one.

Yes, I am.