12-07-06: RwwearHmmm. That's odd. First, because every DVD-A disc I own has a dedicated two channel layer in addition to the multi channel layer. No mix down is required. Have you investigated to be certain you have your player set to play the DVD-A's two channel mix? BTW, I have heard an effect similar to what you describe. It happened when I played all my DVD-A discs that have multi channel mixes because my Denon defaulted to the multi channel layer. I have to select the stereo mix on the DVD-A's audio menu. Then, voila! Stunning sound.
I have the new version of Stupid Dream on DVDA. When played back in it's best quality DVDA format which is in surround there are parts missing in the music that can only be heard when playing the disc in a surround system which I do not have. To be specific, the slide guitar at the beginning of Evan Less is not there when played in stereo. This is true even though my player is set to mix down surround to stereo.
Check it out. This really sounds like the problem, IMO.
I'd be very curious to check out this disc myself to test the theory, but I recently sold my Denon Universal player.