I recently bought some DVD-A/SACD MC titles. In particular, I got Steely Dan's 'Two Against Nature'. I've always been a SD fan. I like the tunes, lyrics and, of course, the extremely high production quality of their albums.

Since the disc has lossy versions (DD and DTS, 5.1), I decided to see if I could find any evidence to support various things I've read (and some things I've had rather obnoxiously shoved down my throat) as to why many people prefer the DTS lossy version when given the choice (me being one of them).

I chose the first 1 minute of track 5 (Janie Runaway) for this 'test'. BTW, this track has the best sounding, though played in the 'less is more' style, studio electric bass tracks through a Fender Jazzbass (my guess) that I've ever heard.

I set my SPL meter on a tripod at the listening position and set it to C weight, slow. The player is set to all speakers 'large' and sub 'yes'. The 950's digital BM is set to all speakers 'small', sub to 'on' and all 3 crossovers are set to 80 Hz. I use the the 950's calibration menu for tones and with master volume set to '00', I calibrated the 5 sats and the redirected bass sub to 75 Db. I then calibrated the LFE sub by using a disc that I know contains an exact copy of the sats bass and leveled it to the redirected bass sub (I can switch them back and forth on-the-fly).

Since my low freq system, which consists of 2 subwoofers, 1 for redirected bass and the other for discrete LFE only playback, allows me to easily isolate any of the 5.1 channels for monitoring/testing, I found the following:

I began the test with the master volume set to -15.

I played the DD version first. With the SPL meter at the LP, I measured the LFE signal only and wrote down the reading for every note of the first four bars. This took 12 replays, so I was sure of the numbers being correct relative to the meter's limitations.

I then isolated each of the 5.1 speakers, 1 at a time and, with the SPL set 1 meter in front of the speaker, repeated the above scenario.

For each of the seven speakers, I switched to DTS and repeated the numbers game, so that the tripod would be exactly in the same spot for each format before I moved to the next speaker.

I then set the tripod back to the LP and raised the Master volume to -5 with all channels playing. I, finally, raised the volume to '00', reference level. Both times I wrote down the numbers using C weight, slow, C weight fast and C weight MAX, looking for both average SPL and transients.

The results are strange and this is why I'm posting here, so that any may chime in and offer any thoughts.

1. The 'BoB's ears' test. I listened to both versions of the song I tested. Hands down I like the DTS version better.

2. With the Master volume set at -15 Db:
a. The LFE was 4 Db louder with DTS.
b. The center channel was 2 Db louder with DTS.
c. The FL/FR and redirected bass sub were 1 Db louder with DTS.
d. The surrounds were identical with both.

3. With the master volume at -5 and again at '00', the volume was precisely, exactly the same in DD and DTS. All 7 channels (remember, I count the redirected bass subwoofer as the 7th 'channel' added to the 5.1) AND the overall soundfield. This volume setting range was important to me because it's the range I almost always listen at with all formats (which are exclusively multichannel).

I would describe the bass to be fuller-range and the vocals to have more depth with DTS. These are the 2 I focused on, bass guitar and vocals. I personally feel the added depth (though it's a subtle difference) may be because the reverb, delay, etc. effects are slightly more discernable.

I'm baffled as to why there is a difference in volume at lower Master volume, but absolutely no difference at higher volume.

Side note: Disc of the month...Al Dimeola's 'Flesh On Flesh'MC SACD. Excitingly different musical pieces. Good pianist, percussion and bassist. Great guitar work. I dig it.