A Look At The Surround Sound Basics

By Aaron B. Baker


The value of surround sound is often overlooked in relation to building and creating home entertainment systems. You should never underestimate that energy that sound holds over all of our own television, movie, and sporting event watching experiences. Movie sound tracks are often used in order to create drama, heighten suspense, as well as to enhance moods or themes from the movie. Surround sound is for a lot more than mere movies and television however. An excellent type of sound also serves to get great depth to our favorite music

Multichannel surround sound gets its name from the fact that you are literally surrounded with the sound. This is a vast improvement within the typical two speaker systems mothers and fathers of old (oddly enough don't assume all that long ago). Surround sound actively works to imitate the ambient noises that we often hear during the course of the day. This can be done for the purpose of art imitating life. By hearing the roll of thunder from the sides rather than merely the left or the right we are experiencing the real great thing about surround sound and enjoying the more realistic effects it lends itself to.

When you are looking into surround sound systems for your residence or home theater you will come across some terminology that may seem foreign and unfamiliar. Surround Sound 5.1 indicates a system that uses five speakers and something subwoofer in order to deliver the sounds. This sound can often be referred to as Dolby Digital. A new term that has been cropping up more and more often in movie circles is THX. This is called surround sound 6.1, involving the use of 6 speakers along with a subwoofer. The center speaker within this system should be located in the center behind the listener so that you can add yet another layer for the sound. Surround sound 7.1 adds one more speaker to the mix in order to produce an even more authentic sound. The more speakers in your surround sound system, the harder realistic the sound is going to be and the better able you may be as an audience member to discover your place within the action.

To acquire surround sound you need more than a set of speakers. You will first require a receiver in order to 'receive' and process the data and send the digital signals and sounds inside direction they should go. In case you are building a home theater you will want to make a good receiver a key purchase of your overall system. This is an important component as sound is critical to a true 'movie going' experience, that is what a good home theater is supposed to imitate.

A good receiver is important not only for a good home theatre but also any surround sound system that you just wish to install (many people begin using these exclusively for gaming as well and they are generally quite effective for this particular purpose). In relation to gaming, surround sound can identify your local area in the action of the game. This works comparable to it does when watching movies. Greater speakers you have in your system the better able you will be to identify that direction actions, sounds, and such are being made. In games this may provide important clues that those with lesser sound systems will will lose out on. Talk about an edge?

While the main objective of surround sound is to simply improve the entertainment experience I can think of very few better things to spend money on when it comes to either a home theater or even the ultimate gaming computer. Do your homework for the systems that are available and remember so good quality speakers are essential in performing the sound properly and you should plan to make a sizeable investment in both the speakers and the receiver or any other sound components (if you decide to go that route for even better quality sound). Whatever you decide and are using it for be sure that you play around with the sounds for the greatest level for your personal enjoyment of one's surround sound system.




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