Those of you that have downloaded multichannel songs/albums from ITRAX,
what is your take on the two "flavors", audience and stage?
Money and bandwidth is at a premium for me, so I would appreciate input.
Thanks!

I'm always curious at the selection that people make when considering a stage and audience perspective in 5.1 surround music. I can tell you that most of the downloads have been for the stereo 96 kHz/24-bit PCM files...by a large margin. There are music servers available to play them.

But when you move to 5.1 the advantage is for the stage perspective. It seems you are either a fan of stereo or want to be completely immersed in the sound.

You can always download the free tracks and see for yourself.

I far prefer the "Stage" perspective on all the AIX titles I own by a long way.
The "Audience" perspective is essentially 3-stereo with reverb in the rears, and I want to be surrounded properly - not placed 15 rows back in a theatre.

Another vote for stage here.

Thanks, folks! Sounds like Stage is for me.

I've preferred every "in the band" surround mix I've encountered (usually over the 2 channel, as only AIX appears to offer the choice--on the several AIX discs I own, I'm torn between the DTS "stage mix" and the DVD-A lossless "audience mix" as each has advantages. However, I'm extremely glad to have the choice at all, as it allows my mood to dictate my choice and not the format.).

In the beginning, I would put the audience mix on the DVD-Audio side of our discs...but on everything (including the classical stuff) since 2004, the MLP mix is the stage variety.

It really is a different animal all together. All of the mixes are available individually on iTrax.com, so you can listen and compare for yourself.

Thanks for that heads up. You've made a sale or two (or more ;) ).