I have seen on this forum many members wanting a direct comparison between DTS core and DTS-MA. I was able to hook up my Onkyo 605 and Panny BD-30 over the weekend and made some comparisons between the DTS core and MA using Live Free or Die Hard. I had a Panny 10A hooked up initially to tweak my equalizer settings on the 605. As many of you know, Live Free or Die Hard (1.5 DTS core) is reference audio in my opinion. I used several of the high powered action scenes to tweak highs and lows, etc. I believe I watched the F-16(?) scene about 20 times trying to tweak the receiver. My wife had to ask when I was going to stop as it was driving her crazy. When I finally got the settings I liked, I decided to hook up the Panny BD-30 and check out DTS-MA. I was quite skeptical of any real improvements as the core is reference. I hooked it up and as soon as the Fox logo appeared, I knew something was quite different. I skimmed through several scenes but went back to the F-16 scene to check if there was any real improvement. I was taken back. The sound was so much fuller. There was definitely more information coming into every speaker and it was much harder to pinpoint which speaker each sound was coming from. I really did not expect this kind of improvement. So there you go from a skeptic. It is much better. I'm not saying every movie will see this kind of improvment but it was CLEARLY evident in LFoDH.
