Listeners to this Telarc DTS Surround Sampler will notice a clarity, directionality, and spaciousness that, until now, have been literally unheard. Using the encoding technology of Digital Theater Systems, Telarc here offers six surround-sound channels encoded in a single data stream in such way as to minimize data compression yet yield six 20-bit discrete playback channels. Other technologies are limited to a data compression ratio of twelve-to-one, rather than the three-to-one ratio utilized here. With compromise, thus at a minimum, the auditive improvement is astonishing.

Telarc engineer Michael Bishop has often pointed out that multi-channel technologies bring artistic realism to a new level partly because they grow from the self-evident principle that sound imaging is subjective and illusory—though the illusion embodies what is generally regarded as an accurate portrayal of reality. At all events, the images are conceived in the mind's ear, generated as they are by mechanisms. This new format gives the brain more imaging material more accurately than previous technologies, and what results is an unexampled capture of subtleties—as the tracks on this disc will show.

—Excerpt taken from the liner notes written by Michael Murray