Surround Sound Basics
Posted by Owen Jones in Uncategorized, tags: computers, entertainment, equipment, gaming, hardware, home improvement, internet, leisure, multimedia, other, Surround Sound, technology, Uncategorized, video gamesYou can never forget surround sound after you have listened to it. Surround sound is the sound delivery system that has long been used in cinemas, so if you have been to the cinema over the last 15-20 years you will know what I mean. These days, it is inexpensive enough to have in your home and many people do have it.
Surround sound is in essence the next step up from quadraphonic or four-speaker sound. This form of replaying sound makes certain recordings sound more realistic. For instance, if you were watching Formula One racing or if you were watching a war movie, you would hear cars or bombs all about you because the sound would be coming from loudspeakers placed all about you.
However, it is not merely a question of placing loudspeakers all about you, the whole sound has to be spread among channels and some channels should just be played over one speaker.
It is a sophisticated set up, if the recording was made well. Surround sound will improve your experience of video games, films and music (some types more than others).
Surround sound systems are expressed as two numbers usually, so you may see 5:1. This means that there are five normal loudspeakers and a sub woofer. Four speakers are placed at the four corners of the room and one under the screen; the sub woofer is placed at the back in the centre of the wall.
After that, there is 6:1, with an extra speaker placed above, below or along slide the sub woofer. There is 7:1, where three loudspeakers are put along the left and right walls, one under the screen and a sub woofer and so it goes on.
You can, obviously, set the loudspeakers up to suit the shape or acoustics of your room, but these are standard configurations and you could go on adding speakers and sub woofers until your heart is content.
The best way of setting up a good surround sound system is to go for a home theatre environment. Home theatre is based on the DVD player. If you make sure that this player is designed for home theatre, it will automatically be ready for surround sound, but check how many different audio output channels it will sustain.
If your system is going to be used for gaming too, you can use the Xbox as your DVD player according to some people. It is worth looking into to see if it will fit the bill. A home theatre system can be created in a spare room, but that is not always handy for listening to music.
In that case, you could either have the home theatre in the living room or run a different set of speakers to the living room with a switch to be able to route the sound from room to room as you want
If you are considering building your surround sound, purchase the best five speakers that you can afford rather than seven cheap loudspeakers, but make certain that you can buy more of the same kind later so that you can expand your surround sound system as you acquire more cash.
Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many topics, but is at present concerned with Mortal Kombat demo 360. If you have an interest in gaming, please go over to our website now at Mortal Kombat 4.
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