2007-11-02 05:14:45 · 4 answers · asked by Texicano 2 in Consumer Electronics ➔ Home Theater
Two companies with competing standards use 5.1 surround: Dolby and DTS. The idea is that the sound created in life is divided into five fields or directions.
If you are watching a movie, the sound from directly in front of you is center channel. It handles most dialogue since that is where the subject will be placed.
The next two channels, left and right, also sit in front of you but off to their respective sides. This opens the sound field and aids in the sense of direction.
Last are the surround left and surround right channels that sit slightly above and behind you. These are used mostly for background sounds further expanding the sound field.
The .1 is for a sub-woofer which handles the omni-directional low frequencies. This part is not as necessary to the experience but helps fill in those impact sounds like crashes, explosions, and ambient rumbling.
2007-11-02 08:04:52 · answer #1 · answered by herbal_cheeze 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Well.
5.1 surround is basically 5 independant full range (20Hz-20000Hz) speaker channels and 1 (.1) channel dedicated to a subwoofer. The low Hz is bass the high Hz is treble
What you have is (1) left (1) center (1) right (1) surround left (1) surround right and (1) subwoofer. What you actually have is 6 total channels.
There are a few other formats out there as well. 6.1,7.1 and even 9.1. If you are shopping for a system 5.1 is a minimum for good home theater sound. There are a few other options in addition to the ".1" systems but I'll stop here. Feel free to ask about the others if you want to know more.
2007-11-02 06:16:58 · answer #2 · answered by Scott R 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
This is often called Dolby Digital. The sound is designed for you to have 5 speakers in a circle and a subwoofer. A AV Receiver will take the signal and split things up to all 6 speakers.
All DVD's come with this type of sound. It is also the official sound-standard for HDTV.
Before this, there was Dolby ProLogic that could take a L/R signal and create a center channel for voices and 2 rear sounds for wind/rain/boom (both rear speakers got the same sounds).
2007-11-02 06:50:49 · answer #3 · answered by Grumpy Mac 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
For greater detail: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_Digital
2007-11-02 10:32:19 · answer #4 · answered by Hammer 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋