I have read controversial discussion about these two mediums and wish to know what you all think.
"Personal taste" is the most often used line where comparison of DD vs DTS is discussed.
After setup of my 950 & 755 with a Pioneer DV45A, my personal opinion is that DTS wins out without any doubt !
Discs that enable either format and demonstrate this clearly to me are:
Gladiator, Minority report ( stunning!)
& Shrek.
The Dts tracks on these DVDs are way more dynamic, open and airy. Dolby Digital sounds veiled by comparison.
I wonder now if this is somehow equipment related? Does anyone have any experience where it was hard to differentiate?

You've probably read this already, but Boblinds and myself did some comparisons of DD and DTS.

http://ubb.outlawaudio.com/ubb/Forum6/HTML/000199.html

While I found the DTS to be better sounding overall, I also noted some differences in the mixes that could not have been the result of the DTS and DD encoding per se. I know that in the past, DTS made their "master" from the 6 track magnetic film safety master of the film soundtrack. Beyond just sounding more "euphonic" because of a generation of magnetic film recording, they had their own proprietary equalization which boosted the bass beyond what was flat. Dolby digital is always mastered directly from the mixing console during the dubbing process.

While I found the DTS to sound better to me, the Dolby Digital version was more what the film sounded like when it was being mixed on the dubbing stage. The DTS by compaison was more "pumped up" sounding.

Keep in mind that DTS uses a data rate of one half of their usual 1.5 megabits per second for DVDs, so the data rate gap between it and Dolby Digital is not quite as wide as it would be otherwise, such as on DTS CDs.

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The Soundhound Theater

noone here knows this better then soundhound. Read his words and let them sink in

Personally, I have done comparisons with the 20 or so dvd's I have that have DTS. Some are better with DTS, others sound washed out when DTS is chosen. I have a list for each movie so I get the best sound for each one.

Example, Blade 2. DTS version sounds weak all around...but in DD, the LFE seems to be very exaggerated. But in the end, Id rather have the potent LFE, turn the sub down...then have a weak sound.

Another example...Reigh Of Fire...DTS version kills the DD version. I could use 20 examples but you get my point. Compare and keep a short list of what you preferred

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Play it LoUd!!

Stuart Robinson of the SMR Forums (http://forums.smr-forums.com:8080/) did an analysis of three encodings of the same recording: Dolby Digital, DTS, and MLP. He found that DTS was the least faithful encoding method, in terms of differences from the original.

This doesn't mean that DTS won't sound better to you. That's a matter of personal preference. But it does mean that if you're looking for the most accurate encoding method to represent the artists' intents, then DTS ain't it.

BTW, it bears mentioning that DTS has for a long time boosted bass levels. It's a known psychoaccoustic phenomenon that "louder" is often perceived as "better" to an uninformed listener, hence the neccessity to do a double-blind level-matched test in order to fairly compare DTS to DD or MLP.

Jeff

it's a phenomenon to me how the 'experts' write an article and many people latch onto what is said.

from the player, to the chosen routing scheme and processing method, preamplification, amplification and playback through 6 or 7 or 8 loudspeakers, an original mix of any format can emerge as nothing like itself.

i'm just glad there IS a competing format to DD.

Just to clarify what Soundhound and I were hearing a couple weeks ago: It was a MUCH more striking difference (with more subtlety) than a louder level. There were many other DTS differences that were preferable to DD ... and not all of those could be attributed to EQ variations.

I'd love to see the article on SMR. Do you have a title for the thread or a direct link? I didn't have any luck trying to search it out over there.

Finally, a DTS anomaly. I rented Moulin Rouge last week (hated it, by the way) and the DTS track was out of sync. I thought it was something wrong with my system until I switched to the Dolby track and all was well. I did find a couple references on the web that others observed the same thing.

Could be an anomaly in my equipment, of course, that some others share as well. But it was pretty weird.

bossobass,

With your nom de plume, I'm not surprised that you prefer DTS. DTS is famous for having "accidentally" boosted the bass in its soundtracks, resulting in the psychoacoustic phenomenon that I mentioned.

Yes, you're right that it's impossible to perfectly reproduce the original material. But does that mean that we should forget about fidelity alltogether? Perhaps you should forget about compact discs, DVD-A, and SACD: after all, it's impossible to get perfect sound, so you might as well stick with cassette tapes, right? Or for that matter, why not stick to wax cylinders?

Obviously, there's a point to trying to get as accurate a reproduction as possible. Every little bit helps, and the end sound is only going to be as good as the weakest link in the chain. Why degrade that chain further?

And as to your glee that DTS is a competitor to Dolby, I'm happy you're happy, but if you looked into DTS's misleading marketing practices a little bit more, I'm not sure you'd be has pleased.

I've personally met a lot of the folks at DTS, and they're a swell bunch of guys and gals and all, but the way they sell their product is unpleasant to me.

Jeff

You'd be surprised. It bears mentioning that the DD and DTS versions of the same film often come from different masters, hence it's hard to tell which format is really better. The reason Stuart was able to do so in this case was he had a known instance where he knew it was the same master, and he had the MLP (lossless)-encoded version to work with as a base of comparison.



Sorry, I don't. You should register and then post your query in Forum 1. Nigel or Stuart may be able to post a link for you. Tell 'em Jeff sent ya.




Probably just an error in the manufacturing process, or possibly the encoding process. I don't think it's any indication of DTS's quality, or the lack thereof.

Jeff

P.S. You probably should check out this article: http://www.smr-home-theatre.org/Schneider/Schneider.html

I've posted this before, but in case anybody missed it, here it is again:

What Dolby Digital Doesn't Want You To Hear!

This is a snippet from the master of a piece of music on the LEFT channel, and the identical snippet from the resulting DVD after Dolby Digital encoding/decoding with the original master subtracted, on the RIGHT channel. The result is what was REMOVED by the Dolby Digital process. You can hear that as the music gets more complex, the amount of "removed" material increases.

The DTS process works basically the same way, the difference being in the degree of material removed.

Give me uncompressed, please

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The Soundhound Theater