Summary and Conclusions

• A genre of loudspeaker music has evolved without notice.
• That genre has a number of specific characteristics that strongly differentiate it, as a genre, from live music performance.
• Loudspeaker music takes place in private environs.
• High-quality multichannel sound playback systems support high-quality loudspeaker music.
• Music is now being composed directly for such systems/spaces, and there is a growing body of work. We can now think of the domestic playback system/space as a “musical instrument” in and of itself.

At the same time, a multi-channel surround sound listening environment can serve multiple purposes successfully. It is desirable to impose as few aesthetic, musical and production constraints on the installation as possible, and to make as few assumptions as possible about how each channel will be used.

Such an environment is by musical and acoustical necessity only suitable for a limited audience size (twenty-five listeners maximum) if performance quality is to be maintained.

I assume that such multichannel systems will be compatible with a conventional 5.1 loudspeaker topology, but suggest the following adaptations:

• the use of identical full-range loudspeakers for all channels;
• the elimination of the subwoofer, while routing the LFE channel to Left and Right;
• the addition of a sixth, overhead channel;
• the redeployment of the five floor speakers into a symmetrical pentagonal array, with appropriate upmix integration of the Center channel into the Left/Right stereophonic array.

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