Audible difference between DTS and Dolby?

[arjscott]

Hi all,

Is anyone willing to share thoughts on this? Personally I have always chosen DTS when available, but had never bothered comparing similar versions (5.1, 6.1 matrix, 6.1 discrete) of DTS and Dolby.

I decided to do a comparision a few days ago, and, yes, I think there's an audible difference, and I perfer DTS. I have a low-spec Denon receiver and Zaph's W3-871 Tang Bands all round.

I've read a million magazine articles that say "Dolby formats are more compressed and therefore inferior". Do you agree?

Andrew.

[neutron7]

Dolby is more well supported

but many DTS soundtracks sound richer and more detailed than DD counterpart.

if it is avaliable i always chose DTS.

[Schaef]

It depends on the movie and the people doing the mix-downs as to which sounds better. I can come up with examples where I didn't like the DTS mix as much as I liked the DD mix, and vice-versa. Personally, when DTS is done right, I like it better, my speakers disappear more when using DTS. The Lord of the Rings special editions are a good example of this.

So to definitively say one is better than the other, can't really be done, it comes down to how well it was done for that movie.

[richie00boy]

Originally posted by Schaef
So to definitively say one is better than the other, can't really be done, it comes down to how well it was done for that movie.

Agree totally. It's not a case of running an uncompressed version through a converter program. There is an engineer and his ears involved.