Surround Sound Fundamentals You could never forget surround sound once you have heard it. Surround sound is the sound delivery system that has long been popular 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 basically the next step up from quadraphonic or four-speaker sound. This form of playing back sound makes certain recordings sound more lifelike. For instance, if you were watching Formula One racing or if you were watching a war movie, you would hear cars or bombs all around you because the sound would be coming from loudspeakers placed all around you. However, it is not only a question of placing loudspeakers all around you, the whole sound has to be spread among channels and some channels ought to only 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 kinds more than others). Surround sound systems are described in two numbers normally, so you might see 5:1. This means that there are five regular 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 put over, below or along slide the sub woofer. There is 7:1, where three speakers are placed along the left and right walls, one under the screen and a sub woofer and so it goes on. You can, naturally, set the loudspeakers up to suit the shape or acoustics of your room, but these are normal configurations and you could go on adding speakers and sub woofers until your heart is content. The best way of setting up a decent 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 made 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 could use the Xbox as your DVD player according to gamers. 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 switch the sound from room to room as you want If you are thinking of building your surround sound, purchase the best five speakers that you can afford rather than seven cheap speakers, but make certain that you can
buy more of the same kind later so that you can build up your surround sound system as you acquire more cash. Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on numerous topics, but is currently concerned with Mortal Kombat Demo 360. If you have an interest in gaming, please visit our web site now at Mortal Kombat 4.