A good quad system should not only sound good, but completely remove the listening room from the first needle drop. THIS is the point of surround sound, and to be honest, it is only rarely heard.
The entire point of surround sound isn't "discreteness" or "soundstage," but the evaporation of the listening room with the first notes of music… sometimes even the expectant silence in the recording studio just before the musicians start. Lynn has these nice words to say about exaSound:
The only time listeners are going to hear what surround music actually sounds like is at hifi show demos of DSD multi-channel downloads. This is where I have to give a big shout-out to exaSound for their spectacular surround demos at the shows. Not gimmicky, just real, and superb fidelity, up to the highest audiophile standards. It says a lot that David Robinson, editor of this magazine, listens to an exaSound e38 DAC at home, the same model used at the show demos by exaSound.