I have a stereo only receiver and a Denon DVD Audio player with a DTS decoder. I recently borrowed Sting's Ten Summoner's Tales DTS disc and it seems to downmix to stereo beautifully. My assumption had been that these discs were only playable with a Multichannel set up. I am not using digital connections between the DVD player and receiver. My question is whether it is possible for these discs to downmix to stereo if you have a decoder?
Some of them are, some of them aren't. IMHO, there's no real use in dowmixing these. The mix, intent- all made to be listened to in 5.1. The BTO and Moodies releases sound wacky without the whole 5.1 experience.
I was just wondering as I plan in the future (hopefully) to go to 5.1 and if the discs would downmix I might as well get the DTS over the redbook. Sounds like it is not etched in stone that they will downmix properly. I appreciate the help Sckott!
Tons of receivers can do a true downmix of DTS...headphone jacks demand it! The ones I've tested do not just drop the center and the rears. While listening this way doesn't do anything for me, I got curious...
With the Sting disc it does not sound like any of the "music is missing" so I doubt that that it is only the L and R channels of the 5.1. (The display of the DVD Player shows that it is downmixing). The only difference I noticed is that the volume had to be turned up a bit more than normal (similiar to the early MFSL Ultradiscs).