Setting up multi-channel audio like a home theater system has always been quite complicated and vendors recently have developed unique products and technologies like wireless speaker kit products or virtual surround sound to help simplify this process. I am going to take a look at several of the newest technologies which were developed to make installing home theater systems a snap. I will illustrate what to look out for when making your buying decision.

While previously installing a TV has been fairly straightforward, the appearance of multi-channel sound has made installing home theater systems a good deal more complex by requiring a number of external speakers to create surround sound. As the traditional 5.1 format needs 6 speakers: a front center, two front side speakers, two rear speaker and a subwoofer, the more modern 7.1 format adds two additional side speakers.

Therefore installing a home theater has become quite intricate and long speaker wire runs are often undesirable for aesthetic reasons. Suppliers have lately launched new products and technologies. These devices were developed to help simplify the installation of home theater systems.

One approach is minimizing the quantity of loudspeakers by making virtual speakers. This technique applies signal processing to the audio and adds phase shifts and cues to the sound that would ordinarily be sent through the remote speaker. As the signal processing is based on how the human hearing detects the origin of sound, the audio components which underwent signal processing can be mixed with the front speaker components and sent by the front speakers. The viewer is in effect deceived into assuming the audio is coming from a location other than the front speakers.

This technology minimizes the quantity of required loudspeakers and eliminates long speaker cables but each human will process sound somewhat differently due to the shape of the ear. Since the signal processing is based on a standard human ear model, virtual surround will not work equally well for every person dependant upon how much the viewer varies from the standard model.

Wireless surround sound products are an additional option for simplifying home speaker setups and normally have a transmitter module that connects to the source and in addition wireless amplifiers that will connect to the remote speakers. This transmitter will typically provide line-level and amplified speaker inputs. Ideally it should have a volume control to adjust it to the audio source.

A number of wireless kits come with wireless amplifiers that connect to two speakers. This still requires cable runs between the two speakers. Other products come with individual wireless amplifiers for every speaker. Entry-level wireless systems utilize FM broadcast or audio compression which will deteriorate the audio quality to some degree. More advanced wireless products utilize uncompressed digital audio broadcast. To be certain that all speakers are in sync in a multi-channel application, be sure that you choose a wireless system that has an audio latency of just a few milliseconds at most. Otherwise there will be a noticeable echo type effect. A few wireless devices work at 5.8 GHz which offers the benefit of less competition from other wireless devices than products utilizing the crowded 900 MHz or 2.4 GHz frequency band.

Another method, which is often named sound bars uses side-reflecting loudspeakers. In this case the sound for the remote speakers will be sent by separate speakers located at the front at an angle and reflected by walls as to seem to be originating from besides or behind the viewer. This approach works best in a square room with minimal interior design and obstacles. It will not work well in many real-world scenarios with different room shapes though.

No Comments

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.