"Properly encoded true multichannel sound is always better than simulated positional audio."
That is not always true, it depends on your personal preference. I used the QMSS of my Philips AE to watch DVD's and I figured that true DD 5.1 would sound better. So, I picked a DD decoder and hooked everything up and did some testing. After watching several DVD's with both true 5.1 and QMSS, I prefered the QMSS and sent the DD Decoder back. One reason for this is that DD 5.1 was developed for a movie theater setting where alot of signal to the reat speakers is not preferred as it would overpower the people sitting in the rear of the theater. In a home setup, where the room utilized is smaller, more information being sent to the rear speakers is more pleasing. Again, this is a personal preference thing, but to me QMSS in DVD's was much better. Here is a excerpt from the Neoseeker review of the Philips AE describing what I am talking about.
"One strong appeal of QMSS processing is that you can get an enhanced 5.1 playback from movies that give out a simple stereo stream. If you have a DVD player, you can choose between using true Dolby Digital decoding, or using QMSS to simulate an altogether different 5.1 experience. The difference lay in the encoding of the two streams: a true DD recording has rear channel information coded by the studio, while the QMSS extrapolated 5.1 playback is merely trying to produce a 5.1 sound stream from a stereo source. The interesting thing is that since Dolby Digital is intended for a theater audience, the rear channel effects are used sparingly, and only in situations where it is best suited for a large room. So for example, a lot of music and effects do NOT get sent to the rear channels in Dolby Digital, because in a theater, they don?t want to ruin the experience for the audience in the back rows where too much rear sound may result in a reduced quality of the overall experience.
Now when you take movies into the home or personal theater, things are different. The audience is in a specific location, and so there won?t be a problem with some people getting too much rear, or too much forward channel sound. That?s where Dolby Digital fails, according to some enthusiasts, because the rear channels may not contain enough information to satisfy an intimate environment like a home or personal theater. That?s also where QMSS steps in. QMSS puts a LOT more information into the rear channels than Dolby Digital does. And though this information is taken from the front channels, it isn?t just a mirror of the front soundstage. That makes for a very convincing surround soundstage that can be very exciting in some movies.
I tested the Acoustic Edge on several DVD titles, and did some basic A-B comparisons between true Dolby Digital playback, and QMSS enhanced 5.1 playback, and the benefits of either can be quite convincing. There?s definitely something to be said about the overall enhanced surround sound coming from the QMSS processing: music is appropriately phased into the rear, and some scenes where there?s a lot of echo information become an absolute delight as the sounds literally envelop your entire listening area. In Titan AE for instance, the music sequences gain a lot of energy, and scenes like the ice field chase benefit from the heightened information on the rear channels.
On the other hand, some movies are better off in true Dolby Digital, because QMSS doesn?t provide as clear a center channel, nor does it offer the absolute precision of a true Dolby Digital stream (this due to the fact that it is trying to create rear channels from front stereo streams). The great thing is that QMSS isn?t FORCED onto the user, it is merely another option that you can choose to use when playing back movies, and I find that to be a very powerful option indeed.
Having been subjected to a lot of these types of algorithms, the most impressive thing about QMSS with movies is that it works very accurately. You won?t hear too much leakage into the rear channels, and I didn?t once find any inappropriate sound information being sent to the rear channels (like center channel speech, or certain sound effects that should only come from the front). Forward-rear pans weren?t as precise as with Dolby Digital, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that forward-rear pans were actually quite convincing, considering this type of information just doesn?t exist in the original stream. My guess is that a lot of movie fans with personal home theaters will enjoy the QMSS feature on some of their movies, and yet prefer to stick with DD on their other movies. Even a purist will find some scenes in any movie that are actually better off with QMSS than with true DD.
What I didn?t prefer about QMSS over true Dolby Digital is the loss of a true center channel. QMSS will attempt to create a virtual, or phantom center channel from the stereo stream, but it isn?t a very good center channel. Understandably so, since a center channel is the domain of true AC3(5.1) streams. If you have ever compared Dolby Pro Logic to Dolby Digital, you can relate to the difference that can exist in the center channel?s information. Sequences with heavy voice emphasis are most noticeably different. Take for example the opening sequence for Titan AE, or The Cider House Rules, where a character or narrator is talking to the audience. There the voices are infinitely more distinct, more clear, and more tonally accurate in Dolby Digital. The opening sequence of Titan AE was particularly revealing, as the virtualized center channel from QMSS gave a much deeper voice to the narrator than was originally recorded and mixed by the studio. It was a distraction to me, because I remember well the distinct qualities of several characters in movies I watch, but it may not bother others. And again, you can turn QMSS off for those movies where it has a negative or distracting effect on the sound. "
Sorry for the length, but I think it explains what I am trying to say very well. It boils down to this, sometimes true DD is better than QMSS, and vise versa. It really comes down to personal preference, the movie watched, and the room size that is being used.