Qsound is a transaural encoding, based on crosstalk cancellation. The problems in Qsound are:
-they use XTC on the recording side, not on the reproduction side, this way they encode the filter response in the record. An XTC filter can sound strange outside the intended sweetspot - as NYravers could hear it last year. This leads to the other problem...
-Qsound XTC filters calculated for the 60 deg point source stereo triangle. This is the worst possible XTC setup, as the filter can work efectively in the 700-2k range only, and even in this range the sweetspot is very small and very sensitive to speaker positioning, head position and individual HRTF differences. This is the reason it is used only for individual short therm or moving source effects only.
- XTC assume that the primary sound from the speakers are much louder than the room reflections or diffractions from the cabinets. Wide dispersion or strong edge diffractions reduce the effect further. Line sources, while reduce floor and ceiling bounce, somewhat wash the effect with multiple arrivals.
- off axis response of an XTC speaker pair is very different from the sweet spot response so wide dispersion or live room is not desirable.