Ambient Surround Imaging

[George]

I got a pair of those German Eloquence sets with the AMSI logo, which stands for Ambient Surround Imaging, and they sounded awful.  Apparently it is a method of encoding a 2-channel CD so that it can be rendered as surround sound when passed through a surround decoder.   To my ears, on a normal 2-channel stereo it sounded artificial, with distorted tonal balance and weird imaging.   I'm selling off the two sets I got that way (Guarneri Beethoven and Brendel Schubert).  I'd advise avoiding any recording with the AMSI logo.

Thanks for the heads up on that. I've wondered about AMSI.

[The new erato]

Haven't noted the AMSi label on this before....but I think the set plays perfectly OK. Perhaps a single instrument is easier; but why anybody would want a piano reproduced in surround beats me. Just goes to show what stupid bastards are employed by the majors.

[George]

Haven't noted the AMSi label on this before....but I think the set plays perfectly OK. Perhaps a single instrument is easier; but why anybody would want a piano reproduced in surround beats me. Just goes to show what stupid bastards are employed by the majors.

Yep. 

[Scarpia]

Dug this up on a DG discussion board.  Apparently AMSI process stereo into Dolby-Prologic compatible input.  To get proper output from these release it should be piped through a Dolby-Prologic processor.  The string quartet recording I have sounds unpleasant to me in ordinary stereo, perhaps the effects would be less noticable with solo piano.  As I mentioned, I will stay miles away from any of these releases.

AMSI I (Ambient Surround Imaging) has been developed in order to convert stereo masters/material to (Dolby-Prologic) surround compatible formats.  A Dolby-Prologic Decoder is required for simulating the surround effect. Such decoders are available in most of the standard amplifiers, as it is in yours.

A computer-based process uses phase-shifts in the stereo material, which results in a surround effect for the back loudspeaker channel as well as for the centre channel. By means of different specific processes the effect is even improved.

The best possible tuning of the Prologic amplifiers can be achieved with disabling the additional DSP effects as "stadium", "theatre", etc. Only this makes sure that the listener has the same conditions as in a mastering or postproduction studio.

As the successor process we have developed AMSI II:.

AMSI II is a process that depicts stereo audio material into 5.1 Surround Sound, ready for storage on DVD Audio, DVD Video or SACD. And we have found, for instance, that AMSI II and DVD Video make an ideal pair: we add the AMSI II-processed Surround version (Dolby AC3 and/or DTS) to the original stereo sound track of DVD Videos.

And we hope that this process will also gain more and more acceptance in the film industry.

For further details please have also a look at our homepage:

http://www.emil-berliner-studios.com/english/content_creation/index_special_services.html

Menu item "Surround Sound".

Kind regards,

Emil Berliner Studios
Deutsche Grammophon GmbH
Emil-Berliner-Straße 17
D-30851 Langenhagen
T +49 511 972 1232