On Fri, 2010-07-23 at 08:51 +0200, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
  On Fri, 2010-07-23 at 01:09 +0200, Jörn
Nettingsmeier wrote:
  On 07/22/2010 08:42 PM, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
 one thing that often gets overlooked: people have learned to accept
 stereo (or, in some circles, 5.1) as the gold standard, and its
 shortcomings have grown into desired features. it's very hard to compete
 with a method that does a few things very well and doesn't even try to
 reproduce most of the auditory cues of, say, a live experience. 
 Correct, I like stereo, I don't like 5.1 and indeed stereo is very
 limited, but with some training it's good to handle.
 If ambisonics shouldn't have the disadvantages of 5.1 I might like it. 
 One crucial difference, please:
 Ambisonics is a spatialization technique.
 So called "5.1" is just an arrangement of speakers. It is no more than
 that. What you don't like is the way the content creators are using that
 particular arrangement of speakers to render their music (or effects, or
 whatever). For that they use one or a selection of spatialization
 techniques of which Ambisonics is just one example - the subject is
 actually quite complex. I imagine most use just a variation of amplitude
 panning or something similar. For the same arrangement of speakers (5.1)
 you could use Ambisonics or any other technique.
 So, comparing Ambisonics and 5.1 is comparing apples with airplanes
 (oranges would be too close, they are both fruits). Very different
 things.
 -- Fernando 
That gives me hope that I'm wrong about abilities of surround sound :).
If I'm mistaken, it will be a win for me :).
- Ralf