While I partly agree with you, I have to disagree
This video shows, that the essence of the real sound has been captured very well. The amount of gearbox whine seems to be spot on in relation to the engine sound.
the gearbox whine during gear changes sounds spot on as well.
The engine sound is the right mixture of turbo spooling and boxer sound.
Is it the exact same sensation you would get in the real car? Of course not. Is it better than most other efforts? I think it is.
Yesterday while playing the pretty great Netkar Pro 1.3 beta I suddenly knew why engine sounds are so important to me (apart from sounding AWESOME of course
). With a convincing engine sound (mixed with believable physics of course) I feel like actually driving the real thing. I do get this feeling in iRacing and Netkar. With a rather synthetic engine sound, this illusion can´t exist, because you hear with every rev that you are simply playing a game.
I don´t know if I can describe it well. It is like the GT HUD. Before we were able to turn it off (Thank GOD, ahh Kaz for that), we were constantly reminded that it is "just" a game we play.
On the 5.1 issue, while I seriously, honestly VERY seriously doubt that GT5 turns into an engine sound masterpiece by switching to 5.1 instead of the good ol´ 2.1, I will give you the benefit of the doubt.
Then I have to make the assumption that PD failed to transform this glorious experience from 5.1 to "normal" speaker systems.
Funny thing though, iRacing, netkar, RFactor, GPL, GT Legends (to some degree), NFS Shift, RBR, all of these sound a LOT better than GT5 on my 2.1 Bose headphones. Let me change "better" to "more believable". The SL 65 AMG on shift sounds as real as Paris Hilton singing. But it sounds meaty and roars like a powerful engine (The SL... not Paris). Its not dead as most of the GT sounds are imo.
It's very good as far as these mods go, but it pales in comparison to those productions that have used high-quality recording gear (which isn't that expensive nowadays) to capture the interior sound properly. In that Porsche, it's a bit "washy", probably from having to recover lost detail from the source - using raw recordings avoids this, obviously.
The GTR series, along with GT Legends demonstrate this well. The only problem being that the samples don't line up and mix together very well in a lot of cases, thus spoiling the illusion. Then there's the archaic sound engine problem again. PGR4, a video of which I posted earlier, is excellent in the interior sound department - sadly, direct-feed footage is rare. (help?)
I suppose I misinterpreted your original post - you said you
enjoy sounds, I read that to mean that you actively analyse them for some reason.
Now, funnily enough, you don't need to pay attention to sound to enjoy it. That's what we do most of the time, even listening to music whilst doing other things. Your brain already knows (or thinks it knows) what it's listening to, so you don't need to concentrate. In that case, you could play anything as long as it's "exciting" and it'll get the job done in a "simulator" (i.e. your SL 65, in Shift.)
Now, if you're comparing a game to how it actually should sound (so, that means you're paying attention to the nuance, and not focusing on your shifting points etc.) you would agree that no game gets it right. Some do the entertaining thing (NFS) to get around the limitations of their methods and their hardware / software. Others try to push the software to give them something more realistic (if not necessarily any more accurate on a per-car basis) - although that might introduce a dependency on extra hardware.
5.1 is great because it immerses you in a physical sound field, just as you would be in the real car. The psychological effect of that alone can be profound. Add to that, the fact that the spectral response and overall power output of such systems tends to eclipse almost any modern TV or cheap 2.1 system, and you see that the experience can be even more visceral before changing a single sound file. I personally don't use any fancy headphones, just some basic professional-level Sonys (but they have excellent response and volume, but lack bass a smidge) and they still don't compare to my "budget" 5.1 system on my PC for "impact".
Equally, one of the best things about listening to classical music at a proper concert, for example, is the way the sound envelopes you and delivers its energy to all of your body. Sounds silly, but it really can never be fully reproduced from a recording without the spatial information and
volume. Racing cars are the same, especially given that they're even louder. I know NFS tries a lot of tricks to try to convey that impact, but it actually just irritates me. The Shift 2 teaser trailer, for instance, is an abomination in sound production. But the kids like it.
Unfortunately, there are some shortcomings with the way PD seem to deliberately exclude intake noise, which would greatly enhance the interior views (and exterior) and mask most of the annoying whir that is used as "engine" noise. And, of course, the tendency to use whatever's lying around for some cars, giving rise to threads like this.
By the way, the GT3 isn't turbo-charged - maybe you should pay better attention
