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13.1 Surround Sound Coming to a Home near you?
An anonymous reader writes "Need to see the anatomy of a codec? Dolby Digital plus is starting to make inroads in the audio world and this article gives you the technical insight into the Enhanced AC-3 codec. Will consumers soon be getting the full 13.1 audio system that we hear in movie theaters?"
I just can't imagine this. I've already got a mountain of wires, with my 7.1 home theater system. I've got about half of those speakers, biwired, with 25 foot length Monster Cables. That, in addition to the tangle of other wires needed to make this mess all work.
I keep looking at my room, and thinking about what it would look like with almost twice the amount of wires I already have, and almost twice the number of speakers. Maybe I'll have to move some furniture out. Heh Heh. And my Denon 7.1 reciever weighs in at around 62 lbs. Guess with a new 13.1 reciever, I might have to re-enforce the floor to hold the added weight. Heavy duty cabinet to. And with all the added heat this monster will put out, maybe some more air conditioning too.
I don't know what everyone else will think about 13.1, but it kind of seems like overkill to me. I already, at times, wonder if there is really that much advantage in a 6.1, or 7.1 system, over a 5.1 system.
I guess if you spend money to buy all those speakers, it BETTER sound better, or at least you've going to tell yourself it does. Heh Heh.
Only three remote holes in the default install, in more than 10 years! OpenBSD
---
The monk extolled.
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
13 discrete speakers and a subwoofer?
Coming to a home near me?
Rrrriiiiight.
See, I have what we call "2.0 surround sound". It "surrounds" me from both corners of my living room.
Right now you can buy receivers with 10.1 surround sound, but nothing actually uses it. 6.1 and 7.1 are rare themselves. Fading between front to rear speakers gives a good effect on where something's coming from or going, having like 3 side speakers can't be that much better.
.. but whats the deal with that huge ass banner on the link?
Hey, I've only got 2 frigging ears. Wanna make the movie experience more interesting? Drop the prices, the over-priced talent, the anti-piracy stuff, the adverts for glossettes raisins, and maybe you'll find that people will watch. 13.1 sound doesn't make a turkey less of a turkey.
NO
I can't wait to hear the rationalization given for this by some clueless people out there: "But it sounds more than 2.5x better than 5.1!"
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
If you sell it, some rapper/actor/athlete will buy it.
13.1 is probably only going to be for the seriously wealthy. Here in the UK, houses are generally pretty small and 7.1 is difficult to incorporate and offers no advantage over 6.1 (as your rear surround speakers are only about 4 metres apart - the rear centres of 7.1 are only going to be a metre or two apart - plus the rear centres in so-called 7.1 actually carry identical sound from the 6.1 mix).
So firstly, where does the encoding of these extra channels come from? Secondly, only a few elite people will ever need/be able to afford/be able to accomodate this.
Bus error in your favour. Collect 200kB
At least, not if my wife has anything to say about it.
This was a good article, not too techie and not too high-level.
There was a lot of firmware/software discussion. It would be interesting to hear if the hardware (speakers) have evolved to push the technology any, or if it's just the software that is the driving force in the industry. Seems like I remember directional speakers? Wave guides? I would imagine this all plays into "room correction", but I could imagine a situation where a speaker channel could broadcast holographic-type sound waves. Seems like that would change the signal definition and therefore the codec, right?
Do the speakers matter as much as they used to? Or is it all software anymore?
Who wanna come to watch , drop at my home! Is just 5$!
No but seriously, maybe there could be market for wealthy people, but who has the room for all those sound boxes and wires?
I want to see something like 4.10. Gimme more subwoof. The scripts are all so crappy who cares about the dialog. Just let us FEEL the action. When Samuel L blows somebody up I want my head to explode, too.
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
I,
Can hear it now. Channel 11 has the whiny kid positioned about five feet ahead of me to the left and channel 8 has the mumbling of the jerks who refuse to stop talking to my direct rear.
Perhaps we can get some 13.1 sensurround where a Dolby foot in tune with nothing constantly kicks the back of your recliner as well.
---- Go ahead, mod me down, I'll just post it again and you lose your mod points.
More speakers in home theatre set ups will just waste money and space. Sound can be easily projected with as few as 4 well-placed speakers (plus one subwoofer), and its a great deal easier to set up. I can safely guarantee that 99% of homes with 13 speakers will have them placed wrong.
Badass Resumes
17.1?!? Bah.
Who has the googlephonic hifi stero with the record player and the moon rock needle?
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
While 13.1 may be appealing to people who need to have the next greatest thing, this will be useless for any significant market. How many home theaters have the correct shape, paneling, furniture placement, and size to take advantage of the acoustical advantages of so many channels? Even at 5.1 channels, I can tell that the acoustic signature in the seat next to me is different -- and less perfect. How will this change with 13.1?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
The only reason you really have that many speakers in a movie theater is because, well...it's big! I think 10 speakers is really the max for a home theater, and even that for the people who can devote a room to just a theater. My perfect sound setup would be a center, 2 front, 2 mid, 2 back, 1 directly behind, and 1 pointing down from the cieling. So that gives you pretty much full surround sound, as not much tends to happen below people in movies.
For the average joe though I think 7.1 is pretty good, considering most people tend to get the cheapest speakers they can get, usually those ones that come with the theater packages, $199 for 7 speakers. I think the amount of speakers is less important than quality. I would rather be stuck in stereo with two very high quality speakers, than surround sound with 7 crappy ones.
It always bothers me that most movies barely use the surround channels that are available to them. When is the last time you really heard more than a few enviromental effects during a movie, at a theater or even at home? the special setup discs and whatnot do a good job but most movies only have a few gimmicks in them that make you go "wow, where did that sound come from". Most of the sound is preatty much just in the center, right, and left channels especially any dialog. Mostly it just seems like they are just trying to up the numbers to make it seem more impressive, but i bet on most movies you would have a really hard time differentiating between 6 channels and 13, and maybe even basic stereo and surround for some movies.
"Alcohol, cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems" -Homer Simpson
not 13.1. I have no intention of buying more than a speaker for each ear, a high-bass, and a low-bass. BTW, nothing is better than RME Gigi and Nuendo series of audio DSP. Companies should first consider quality, not quantity.
That is all.
Well, one of the problems I've had with theatres (and that I've heard voiced quite often on slashdot) is that it seems the quality really isn't that good. Often, it isn't as good as a well-dimensioned + laid-out room with a good surround system.
The "surround sound" test that precedes movies in most theatres I find quite sad. You get some bass, perhaps a stereo effect, but nothing all that surroundish. Maybe it's just the tests that suck, but I get more realistic environment out of my computer with an SBLive! playing doom3 or half-life...
OVERKILL.
SYS 64738
My front room already has enough wires in it stuffed behind the TV. The thought of spreading more of them out for my kids, one three and one two, to destroy really does not appeal. It wouldn't even appeal if there were no kids there to damage them; my front room is for relaxing in, not for turning into a server room-alike.
I'm aware that wireless speakers already exist, but last I looked (a year ago?) good quality ones are very expensive, and I believe there are sync. problems with surround sound? If you know differently, please bring me up to date because I would -love- to replace my stereo speaker set up with good wireless surround.
Cheers,
Ian
then if you listen all around you it would make 8 speakers. then there are the sounds above and below you which would make another 8 below and 9 above (the extra one for directly above you.
in all that makes 25 speakers. once again noting that each speaker should have bass integrated.
until a setup like that occur, of course we will have to go through every iteration of consumption, as may as possible but I'm impressed none the less at the jump between 7.1 and 13.1, they could have made so much money by going 8,9,10,11 and 12!
I use RG-58 coax (old ethernet cable) for my speaker wires. It works great.
I had a bunch of old coax cable and patch panel stuff laying around. I needed a couple of speaker wires. A couple of crimps later I had audio, and that got me started.
I'm going to use the rest of it to wire the whole house (well, the deck, two bedrooms, and a bathroom) for sound.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
I've got about half of those speakers, biwired
OOC, why would you biwire surround or center channel speakers? I can see doing the fronts if you're using them for audio only as well, but I can't imagine it doing much for the other speakers?
Just think of the dumb people that will get talked into this by salesmen. "Oh yeah, you NEED 14 speakers to really hear the movie like it was meant to be"
giveaways: buying 25 foot monster cables for half the speakers (possibly two for rear speakers, front/middle doesn't need 25 feet, and monster!!); user posted early in the discussion, hoping to increase karma with a troll username (mocking the bsd guy Theo de Raadt).
keep building up that karma... soon you'll have a good troll account to use... most likely to troll the bsd section??
I'm sure speaker manufacturers would LOVE for this to become the next big thing in home theaters. I'm sure it will cost more to the end consumer, however I don't think it's as overblown as some might be making it out to be.
Consider that if you have 13 speakers instead of a measly 4, that you might not need to go all out and have 13 floor-standing gut-punchers in order to achieve a proper effect. I'm betting a much smaller speaker will be more balanced, and cheaper.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
If I'm going to go for overkill, I'm going all the way.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Using the WFW rules, everyone should know to wait for 13.11 surround sound setups.
Great, buy one of these systems and you too can hear your 5.1 DVDs on 17 speakers! Why am I suddenly having flash back to the old Quadraphonic sound systems or the 60's and 70's?
I think what we need to realize here is that just because the technology will be available to place in our home, doesn't mean we can reproduce the same or even a similar effect in our home. The acoustics of a standard living room are dramatically different than that of a movie theater.
...all the speakers were equipped with Bluetooth or some other wireless connectivity for the audio signal...and it were hi-enough-fi to satisfy anyone that wanted 13.1 speakers... ...how are you ever going to plug them in? Wiremold around your living room with continously outlets, one every foot?
Well, then, EVEN IF all but the subwoofer were battery-powered... would you like to go around replacing 52 AA batteries every time you wanted to sit down for a nice listening session?
Well, then, EVEN IF all the batteries were rechargeable... do you have a charger that can accept 13 batteries all at once? And do you feel like shelling out thirteen times whatever a good NiMH battery costs so that you can have a set to listen with while the first set is charging? After you go around the living room replacing thirteen batteries?
This is never going to fly unless they can power the things off fuel cells or microwave power beamed from a satellite or individual pellets of U235 in each speaker or something.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Sound tech 1:"Okay everyone, sound check!"
Sound tech 2:"Cue Leonard Nimoy"
Sound tech 3(quietly):"Leonard Nimoy!? Why?"
(LN):"Because he grew up a few blocks from here!"
It's small part of the Boston Museum of Science's Omnitheater sound check, and they even put lights on each channel's speakers behind the screen so you can see them as each channel is "checked". Then they do a driver through Boston traffic with an omnimax camera on the bumper of a car. And speed it up at least 2x. Even the most die-hard Boston taxi driver will grip his seat :-) Oh, and yes, Nimoy narrates the whole intro.
Then you do a helicopter trip over parts of New England, coming into a harbor in Maine...then on the docks. Ahhh, peaceful, quiet, much better you think.
"Hey CHaaaalie. They folks whanaaah seeah lobstah!" And then you get presented with a live lobster...full screen width, up close and personal, an inch or two from the lens, complete with squishy/squeeky noises :-)
Please help metamoderate.
Why don't they instead come up with a decent calibration scheme? Most home setups are not ideal, so why not measure where the couch is with a mic?
How bout 13.2 or 13.3? The more subs the better. Let the bass boom!
I don't think the 13.1 in this story is 13.1. I think it reflects the theatres' 13.1 speaker implementation of 5.1 channel sound.
...1...2...3...
....4.....5....
SPEAKERS:
3 across the front
4 down each side
2 at the back
CHANNELS:
#s 1-5 played back over speakers like this:
4.............5
4.............5
4.............5
4.............5
I always find that pure stereo sounds better than most setups. This is probably because a multichannel setup cost 2.5 times the amount to set up with the same quality speakers, amps etc., and most people don't have the money to do that, so they just use cheaper components to get more channels for the same investment.
The new Infiniti M already has 14 speakers:
i d-32005,00.html
http://www.infiniti.com/content/0,,cid-123089_sct
You'd probably be able to add the receiver using the optional towing package.
Litter the floor
Beyond Sonos
One thing I need more:
Burma Shave
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Why bother with any of this home theatre crap? It costs a lot of money and the standards are always changing, so there's always going to be something new/better on the horizon. Thank goodness I have decent theatres near where I live - I'm simply going to ignore home theatres and continue to enjoy taking my wife out on movie dates.
couldnt you set up 8 speakers, each at a corner of a rectangular room? that would allow for fades from any direction to any other direction. then maybe add a center speaker in front. thats 9.1 speakers. how could any setup possibly require more than that?
Too bad holophony is patented. I'd like to see more development of it rather than more speakers.
I'm so tired of audio gimmicks involving surround sound. The *reason* they have 13.1 surround in theatres is because they're HUGE. This would be ridiculous to install in a home system.
Even worse, if 13.1 came to the home market I bet you'd see the already depressing trend of shoddily made, terrible sounding, cheap (or expensive if you count bose) surround systems turn into even more terrible sounding surround systems because the materials cost-cutting has to accomodate more speakers and the toaster-grade electronics have to handle more channels.
*shudder*
vk.
Would someone tell me how this happened? We were the fucking vanguard of audio in this country. Stereo was the system to own. Then the other guy came out with an 6 speaker system. Were we scared? Hell, no. Because we hit back with a little thing called 5.1 surround. That's five speakers and a subwoofer. For Bass. But you know what happened next? Shut up, I'm telling you what happened - the bastards went to 8 speakers. Now we're standing around with our cocks in our hands, selling five speakers and a subwoofer. Surround sound or no, suddenly we're the chumps. Well, fuck it. We're going to 14 speakers.
e tte.html
James M. Kilts CEO and President, The Dolby Corporation
http://www.physics.mcgill.ca/~arobic/funny/Gill
Top 10 Reasons To Procrastinate
10.
I worked as a projectionist and projectionist manager in a movie theater for about 5 years. I can honestly say that while the notion of 13.1 surround sound is all well and full of prospects, the economic figures do not support it. How many theaters have you seen with 13.1? Also, the space in a theater is scores more than that of the average living room. Isn't 13.1 going a bit overboard for home systems. Uber- rich afficinados go to hell thanks. :)
Most movie houses I have been to on the east coast don't have the "full 13.1 audio system that we hear in movie theaters". Best I have experienced is 7.1 and that is plenty enough IMHO.
Also, the exhibition part of the food chain (the theaters) is strained enough as it is. Most chains and not to mention independent houses can't afford to constantly upgrade the technology upstair in the booth. A lot of DTS or Dolby Digital theaters actually only have 2 or 3 units that they wheel between screens. Analog is still prevalent.
Lastly, there is limited physical space on the film. The inner track is mono, then stereo, Dolby Digital is speckled on the film track. DTS is on a disc that is sync'd using a timecode marker on the outer edges of the film. Im still uncertain where they fit a 13.1 signal on the film surface? (Obviously this doesnt affect a HD-DVD at all.)
So I again ask: Why?
wasn't that what we said back in the 70's?
But the reality is, it's not how big your speakers are, it's whether or not your room is configured correctly and the sound absorption and focus characteristics.
That, plus you can have the best speakers in the world - but if you still watch the movie alone, you lose.
Will in Seattle
Okay, so most people actually use their televisions to watch, oh I don't know, maybe television? And rather than coming out with something that would have a benefit to most consumers like inexpensive HD sets, quality programming, or heaven forbid an actual sound system that could be upgraded as easily as a PC, we've got companies looking at installing 13.1 surround sound systems in homes so they can watch movies on DVD that cost too much anyway?
Rich Asshole: To the right is the bowling alley, to the left is the indoor pool, and down the hall is the entrance to the east wing, where we have the 800 seat private movie theater. Next weekend, we'll be showing "Porky's," you should come on over. Oh, and bring a small town with you.
Joe Shmoe: What would it cost for me to get something like this?
Rich Asshole: Rich parents, unscrupulous business practices, and a society where 80% of innovation goes to making the lives of the richest 5% as pleasant as possible.
Nah... I'll get on of those in my car! That's what I call pimp my ride!!!
I still don't see how more "realistic" sound improves ANYTHING. I don't particularly want to be scared by the sound of a cow fifty meters offscreen when I'm trying to listen to dialogue. Plenty of the worlds BEST films were filmed with NO sound.
Home theatre systems are nearly impossible for the average person to set up properly now -- and we are "only" 9.1 systems. Today, we have more wires behind our receivers than the Pentagon network operations center, and balancing all of the speakers can be a frustrating experience to say the least.
The best part of all of that effort is this: we do it so we can let our wives watch Trading Spaces in high definition / surround! Or better, watch Lifetime Channel for three or four hours straight -- which has been proven to eradicate testosterone and cause a severe form of acute depression.
Seriously, audiophiles may pay for this, but most rooms are not big enough to support the sound effectively, and those with substantial investments will wait until the next upgrade cycle to even consider it.
Do not see the need for it unless I have a movie theatre like big ass room that I want to fill up with sound. Then ofcourse I will need to furnish it with rows and rows of chairs....popcorn machine...jalapeno stand. Umm no thanks! My 5.1 serves its purposes just fine.
The voices in my head provide me with all the surround sound experience I need. No batteries needed, but I can't for the life of me find a way to turn it off.
This is a complete guess, but I imagine theaters are simply generating 13.1 audio from 5.1 to 7.1 to maintain the sound stage, rather than to improve, er, I don't know the word, so I'll say "spatial resolution".
What? They already have that? Son of a bitch...
A guy walks into a bar... well, I forgot the joke, but the punchline is that he's an alcoholic.
Yeah!!! I'm gonna ride this train straight after I get that amp that goes up to 11!
The commonly available theatrical formats are:
- mono (1 channel, with Academy curve/early NR system)
- Dolby Stereo (2:4 matrix system with A or SR noise reduction, provides L/C/R/S information with optional crossover for subwoofer)
- SRD or DTS digital (both provide 5 discrete L/C/R/LS/RS channels, plus LFE/sub channel)
- SDDS digital (8 channel L/LE/C/RE/R/LS/RS/Sub)
- EX (digital sound with matrixed rear-surround channel, for 6.1 or 8.1 channels, depending on whether the digital format is SDDS or one of the other two)
I'm ignoring 70mm, magnetic, and other uncommon formats.
There is no 13.1 format, though DTS's current player (the XD10) is capable of reproducing 10.1 channels
Really, 13.1 channels is just silly, especially in a home environment. Speaker design and placement, room acoustics, and system setup (how many people set up their home systems with an RTA?) are far more important to good sound than adding more channels. Heck, even mono can sound great if the system is designed and installed by someone competent.
Go pee in the corner...
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
It appearently lacks in the audiophile dept. I think 90% of the comments I've read all amount to "overkill" comments.
Is this a good solution for the average consumer?
No.
But then again neither are 10k a piece stero speakers. But for your audiophile, they are to die for. Audiophiles yearn for -perfect- sound, or as close as possilbe. Where it sounds like you're no longer in your house, but at Carnagie Hall. Or in the Deathstar watching light sabers clash first hand.
It's an enthusists product. Like a new top of the line vid card or a supercharged v8. Get over it and quit knocking it.
First off... Monster cables suck! Try Transparent Cable (http://www.transparentcable.com/)
Second point. I have the 7.1 surround sound set up.
it seems to me that about 80% of the movies are 5.1 19% are 6.1 and 1% are 7.1.
The advantage is that I have a reciever that claims to up the signal to simulate 7.1. I rarely use that feature of the reciever. Instead I just listen to the movie in the sound recorded, be that 5.1, 6.1 or 7.1. My reciever can just play back the sound using the signal sent to it with out tryig to simulate 7.1. I find using what the movie was encoded with give me a true sound that they are tyring to impress upon the viewer.
I have found most movies at 5.1 sound good. 6.1 add that extra touch, which is really nice. 7.1 is a bit of over kill and does not add that much to my movie experince over 6.1. I am sure as time goes buy more movies will support 7.1 and those movies will take full advantage of it makeing it sound better than 6.1. Mind you I have only heard a very small handfull of movies played on my system in true 7.1.
My Sig indicates the end of the comment I posted.
Do it yourself, I'm guessing, eventually. But I really have no need or place to put a 341.1 system. Not unless someone invents wallpaper with transducers that are literally printed into it with circuit traces and so on. Monster Cable afficianados will predictably get quarter inch wires laid into theirs and sooner or later, a living room will look like a room in a Borg cube.
All so I can hear people whining on Survivor about how hard their challenge is as if I was right there with them.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
Ignore that posting, for some reason I was thiking 14.1 surround -- you are correct and I'm an idiot.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
They could start using more modelled sounds in the soundtrack to act subliminally to add some (interesting) effect. Like the low frequencies often used to make you feel uneasy/disoriented. EEG experiments could provide algorithms know to induce certain states. Anything from joy to fear to psychotic episodes to free paper bags for vomit!
Talk about immersion! &Talk about rating!
.m
Headphones.
Yes, I have "stero surround sound", the poor man's way.
I just run a pair of home-built speakers. Each has a 15" woofer, 6" (or is it 8?) midrange and two horns. All reasonably matched for power and frequency response. Amp is some old POS 80W per channel thing a friend gave me. It just kicks ass. Subwoofers tend to resonate at a particular frequency and just produce a thump rather than reproducing the correct sound. Big woofers respond down to ~20Hz correctly. The only thing that might be an improvement is having rears, but I don't have a theater setup - just music.
Favorite test/demo track: The Launch by Boston
Spinal Tap could not be reached for comment.
you can have my violent video games when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.
Prime UID Club
These are hardly "version" numbers, and they do not apply only to Dolby. They apply to any speaker setup, where the digits before the seperator point denote the number of speakers(or, if referencing the actual sound source, the number of channels), and the digits after the point denote the number of subwoofers (or bass channels). You can have a 18.4 speaker setup for all Dolby care.
Nice weather for penguins...
7 or 8 years ago, I bought a Yamaha surround processor, a 2 + 2 system. As I was contemplating the purchase of the rear speakers, my friend explained that a 5+1 system would have been much better. And in fact, I realized that there was precious little I could do with my Yamaha.
I managed to sell it (with a substantial discount) to a guy whom I did explain the situation.
Since then, I never bought any surround system. I have my two speakers, and enjoy full immersive whatever when I go to the cinema. I imagine the movie industry has unlimited means to create the perfec theater and experience.
I am sure that the movie people would love it if people bought the same movie on DVD and other media, over and over. I gave up on that game (the only way to win). I also suspect that many of those who buy sophisticated surround systems, do it for the "bling" value (read "chick magnet"). I don't need that, so I am and probably will stay cool to this tech.
Sigged!
I don't know what everyone else will think about 13.1, but it kind of seems like overkill to me. I already, at times, wonder if there is really that much advantage in a 6.1, or 7.1 system, over a 5.1 system.
Think about all the movies that you really like and then imagine them without surround sound at all. Just simple stereo sound. Does it really diminish the movies? I mean I like surround sound but I've been unable to set it up for a while now and honestly, I don't miss it.
It's a neat gadget, and sure, if I have the equipment and room for it, why the heck not. But frankly good movies don't need surround sound. For example, I have Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon on DVD. It's a fantastic movie, and I've hooked up the surround sound to it. It is cool when a spear breaks and I hear the shards land behind my head. But if I didn't hear that, would it really make a difference to the movie? No.
So if you're talking 5.1 vs. 7.1 vs. 13.1, who really cares after a point. If it was easy to set up and I had the space for it, sure, that'd be neat, but in reality, it doesn't much matter.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
The Yamaha YSP-1 looks like a much better idea for home theater, assuming you've got the walls for it. Hell, you could build or renovate a room and put the YSP-1 in for less than you could get 14 good speakers.
Am I the only slashdot reader with two penises?
Superfluous? Superfeen? Eh?
He probably has a 13" TV.
so tell me..how much media out there ACTUALLY TRUELY supports anything more than 5.1 right now anyway? hmm? HMM???? id say less than 3%. is my guess.
I've listened to binaural recordings on some of teh best headphones available (Sennheiser 650s if you are curious) and it still doesn't truly produce an immersive experience. One big problem is that the soundstage is glued to your head. If you move your head, the soundstage moves with it. That's not how it works in real life, we often turn our head a little bit to help us better localize sounds. So when it moves with our head, it sounds wrong.
Also, you don't just hear with your ears or, more correctly, you percieve some sound with other parts of your body. You can feel bass and that does contribute to your perception of sound.
Lets not forget that some people might actually have the room to set up a decent sized home theater that could accommodate the 14 speakers. That being said, most of those people probably have enough money to buy movie theater quality audio equipment; however, what I don't think most of these people are able to buy is the media (DVD's?) which supports this many channels.
By making a 13.1 channel receiver available to the public, the wealthy will finally be able to build the home theater they've always wanted (assuming future DVD formats include the ability to encode 13.1 surround sound).
Keep in mind that I am not super rich, so it's entirely possible that the wealthy can already buy the exact same media/equipment that the movie theaters use. If that's the case and this format is directed to the general (middle class) public, I must say that 13.1 is a wee bit on the excessive side for most of us.
My lame blog.
"If you're going to do something to excess, you might as well go overboard." --Too Much Coffee Man, http://www.tmcm.com/
Any multi-channel surround format won't be effective until people start mixing for it. Otherwise, you're just going to end up with an upmix of the original 5.1 mix -- not a true 13.1.
;)
These days, most movies are likely doing their final mix only to stereo (for TV), LCR, LCRS (dolby surround), 5.1, and 7.1. Adding another stem type adds more cost to the production -- extra cost I think most studios will opt to skip.
But, heck -- the same thing could have been said about DVDs and 5.1 a few years ago
According to the spokeperson of Supersubmersion Technology, "the invention of this technology enable family to fully experience movies like the latest quantum-redigitalized Starwars episode 1-9, plus the latest episode 31 'Return of JarJarBinks', where the audience can feel the JarJarBinks are really enraged".
I know parent was mostly kidding but nobody that is even considering high fidelity 13.1 sound would be willing to take the audio performance hit inherit in wireless speaker setups.
All that is needed for 3 dimensional sound is 2 speakers...
A good audio engineer can produce mixes with 2 speakers that can make it sound like audio is coming from anywhere around you...
even 5.1 is superfluous...
The Admin and the Engineer
Three scalars give you triangulation, which will help you locate a specific location along TWO dimensions. This is how the "location" feature of digital cell phones works, how a surveyor's transit works, etc. For 3 dimensions, you add the "Z axis," which requires another set of points against which to triangulate. This is the point of 10.1 (which I have experienced personally) and 13.1. Current 5/7.1 systems leave the Z axis entirely out.
For that matter, why is 7.1 "better" than 5.1? Easy. Audio perception is far more directional than 5.1 can accommodate. The "mid-left" and "mid-rear" channels fill in the gaps that 5.1 leaves.
With that said, I'm quite happy to listen to South Park in 5.1 in my living room. Theatrical presentations will benefit from 7.1, and to the extent that presenters hope to achieve accurate reproduction of the original environment (so called "room shaping"), 10.1 and 13.1 are an absolute requirement. You can't reproduce the reverberations from a particular concert hall without accommodating the Z axis...
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
Now maybe when you watch movies you put your head in a brace that keeps it perfectly motionless, but most of us don't. One thing we do, subconciously, is move our head slightly. Happens all the time, it's natural. Now our brain is trained that as our head moves, the sound it percieves should change since the sound field itself is static. It can acutally use the cues picked p from slight head movement to get a better perception of the soundfield.
With headphones, this doesn't happen. The sound field moves in sync with your head. This never happens in nature and thus sounds wrong to us. I suppose you could reprogram your brain with enough training, but it seems more sensable to set up a system that reproduces sound more naturally.
Also, not sure about you, but most of us have eyes that also move on two axes. Thus as our head moves, we are capable of looking at the same spot by moving our eyes. Also done subconciously.
What movie theaters are you going to? And more importantly, where are they getting their prints?
Your local theater has 5 channels and a sub. I promise. If you're lucky, you *might* have Surround EX, which entitles you to a pair of additional rear speakers. But guess what - you probably almost never hear them, because there are very few movies mixed in Surround EX.
Most of the documentaries you see are mixed to stereo. Most other movies are mixed to 6-channel surround. It's that easy.
All those other speakers you see? They're not more channels. They're for better coverage in huge auditoriums.
-isnt it strange to be anything at all.... -jeff mangum
it's funny how no matter how many speakers, they love to only have one subwoofer. 100.1? yeah, yeah, i know low frequencies are omnidirectional. but the "subwoofers" that most htib systems come with are just woofers. they have to go pretty high up in the freq range to compensate for the tiny, cheap satillites. that kinda kills the "omnidirectionalness". with most cheaper systems i've heard it's pretty easy to "hear" where the subwoofer is placed. maybe the next wave will be walls and ceilings that are just a matrix of tiny speakers. they could be controlled like an lcd panel. you could have almost infinite flexability in created real life sound. or you could just go outside..
these ppl r nuts, who in their right mind needs that many speakers?
ps. my computer runs just fine with 640KB of RAM
I just don't understand this whole need for such detail in Surround Sound. 7.1 is more than enough to fool the human ear into comprehending the perceived location of an audio source, at least on a two-dimensional level.
.1 is an overhead speaker to truly add a third dimension to sound. I can only imagine what it would sound like to have a jet in Top Gun or similar movie go from left front to top channel to rear right! That type of 3D audio would be far more impressive than using six more 2D speakers that can just as easily be replicated by positional audio between two existing speakers. The recent technological advances in flat speaker and wireless technologies would make a "ceiling speaker" easier to implement than many people would think.
Objective: Have the sound come from what appears to be speakers 4 and 5.
Common Sense solution: Equalize the specific sound between speakers four and five to simulate its location between those two speakers.
13.1 solution (or so it would seem): Come up with a new set of codecs, equipment, and speakers to actually have the sound come out of another speaker!
By the way, the Common Sense solution is free to existing 7.1 and to a lesser extent 5.1 owners.
Personally, I want an additional sound channel to get a 5.1.1/7.1.1 solution where the added
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
2 guitars a bass and drums.
I have nothing to hide. So, why are you spying on me?
Has anyone RTFA?
This article was primarily about audio codecs applied to portable audio and cellphones. This 13.1 surround business was only mentioned in passing.
you've found a completely new category of misunderstanding: "Insightfully clueless"
-- i am jack's amusing sig file
IMAX theatres have a discreet 6 channel sound system: LS, L, C, R, RS Center Top, and a sub derived from the sum off all channels with a crossover below 80Hz. IMHO, 13.1 is unrealistic considering the cost of the hardware from audio post to presentation... can you imagine the panning and bussing requirements for a theatrical film? Post houses would easily have to quadruple the amount DSP in their consoles (if that was possible with the current designs), and add WAY more stem recorders to the process for what sonic gains? Has anyone given any thought to the phase issues that would arise panning a sound through a room with that number of speakers? IMAX has a proprietary system for playing back the UNCOMPRESSED mixes off of hard disks synchronized to the pix.... would conventional theatres have to consider retooling and going double system to handle all that data?
Not gonna happen.
blah, blah, blah...
The advantage of this over the mondo home theatre receiver is that amplifiers can be better matched to the output characteristics of a speaker, thus reducing the power necessary which reduces their size (your home theatre receiver is so big because the emplifiers inside of it have to be able to drive a wide variety of speakers with varying impedance characteristics). With a smart system you'd hook your speakers up to firewire or ethernet cabling, assign each speaker its place in the system (hardware address "foo" is the center channel, hardware address "bar" is the subwoofer, hardware address "baz" is the left front, etc), plug the speakers into a power outlet and let the whole thing rip.
In an ideal world a standard would be worked out that would allow you to mix and match speakers and receivers, which would actually become controller/switchboxes from different manufacturers. Unfortunately we're not in an ideal world so we'll end up with a raft of incompatible systems, plus the **AAs will probably insist that some sort of onerous DRM scheme be applied to any digital bitstream. Oh well, at least it was a nice dream.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
So for all of you that are rational and have no need for 13.1 speaker systems (I sure don't), look forward to it nonetheless. As soon as this happens, or shortly afterwards, the price of 7.1 and lesser speaker systems will start to drop accordingly. And so the reasonable person will be able to pick up a great sound system for even less. Your snobbish non-tech neighbors can enjoy wiring their 13.1 speaker system while you enjoy your lower price and easy/easier wiring job.
If a film was meant to be 2.0 or mono, so be it. If the sound of those spear shards are supposed to eminate from the back of the room, then I wanna hear them.
(Unless of course, that director is a pinhead like George Lucas whose intentions magically change between releases.)
Offtopic, but who do you have to kill to get pay channels like HBO to start broadcasting in proper aspect ratios? They deliver 5.1 sound now, but they're still stuck on pan and scan visuals. Bastards.
The real founder of OpenBSD is named Theo de Raadt, not Theo de Raabt.
Nice try, impostor.
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
Breakfast served all day!
...And how long it'll take to cycle through all 13 channels. Shhh. Shhh. Shhh. Shhh. Shhh. Shhh. And so on.
Is anyone else mad that this cocksucker who's impersonating Theo has been modded up to +5?
Let's mod this fucker down.
Perfect for video games where sound lets you find your foes faster than vision. Now, we just need surround video, so I can wheel around to spot a foe before the Master Chief can catch up (for all his strength he sure turns around slow).
Last Post!
I wish stories would flag links that require that you accept their cookies. Refuse them for this one and you get a refresh loop every 20 seconds to the same page. (And when you visit so many news sites, it becomes a pain to search for all the references to refused cookies for a site in Mozilla's Cookie Manager's Cookie Sites tab.)
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Good for me I suppose...
Nice weather for penguins...
2 ears 2 headphones
That's it
Put a mic in each ear and record then play, could be theorically excatly the same unless you have directional tympans.
Roger: "Real-Rustic, Dodecaphonic, AroundSound Processor. Ever notice how flat and unexciting normal stereophonic, quintophonic, and octophonic recordings are? With the Real-Rustic, Dodecaphonic, AroundSound Processor, your music will seem to come from twelve directions: In front of you, behind you, either side of you, four midpoints above you, from below you, from inside of you, and from the upstairs neighbors! 877 buckazoids." Discontinued? I wanted that!
"So then I said, 'Hey, maybe it's the needle!'"
I'm having a bunch of fun with this.... http://whatisthelsd.com/
You won't really need 14 speakers for it. I'm sure Bose will be quick off the mark with a system that emulates 14 speakers using two tiny boxes and a subwoofer. And it will sound just as crappy as everything else they make.
See I find the opposite to be true. In my room I have a 4.0 system built on professional/audiophile gear. It sounds excellent and produces a very immersive sound field. Also the speakers have drivers so closely matched, that when they work in unison, it really sounds like you have another speaker in between them.
One problem though: The sweet spot is tiny. If you move at all out of the chair in front of the computer, you lose the soundstage. Sounds in the centre only sound centred if you are right in the middle of the speakers. Move to the side, it becomes unbalanced to that side.
When you have a large number of speakers, like I'm putting in my living room, the soundfield is far more difuse. The sound is coming from many locations, so moving slightly near or farther from one source doesn't really change your perception much since no source is doing all that much work.
It's the same principle as doing sound for parties. If you do it all from two speakers by your gear, then you either have it too loud at the speakers, or too soft at the other end of the room. If you have speakers all across the room, they can all be turned to a low level, giving a uniform sound field.
That's the main reason I'm looking at doing 7.1 in my living room. True the source will onyl be 5.1, but the reciever will handle the upmixing. The result is the side channels will handle some of what the front and back speakers do, so if you are closer to one or the other, it would sound as off.
Sounds like what your friend needs to do is to mount the speakers properly. Front channels should have their tweeters at about ear level, the CC should be on top of the TV, but surrounds should be mounted above head level, facing down slightly. It's also probably worth calibrating the system, either manually with a dB metre or by getting a reciever that can do it. Most people crank their surrounds too much because they want to hear them doing something so they know they are working. Actually, surrounds shouln't do that much in a normal moive. You shouldn't really notice them, except during effects, they should just contribute to an overall better sound field.
Will consumers soon be getting the full 13.1 audio system that we hear in movie theaters?
No offence, but those supposed 13.1 systems in movie theaters are NOT discreet channels. Films, yes even for movie theaters, are only mixed in 5.1. This I know because I worked on mixing a film for dolby digital at Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, on their second-largest mix stage, with the final delivery medium being the optical track on 35mm film. Their system only worked with 5.1, no more. So what's the point of these additional speakers, when the source will only ever be 5.1 in the near future? It will be a while before the films are mixed in more than that consistently.
Any shielding suggestions for high frequency (100khz+) VGA signals? I apparantly have RFI problems in that range in my room. My monitor is fine until about 1600x1200x85Hz which is where I want to run it. At that point there are little jitters.
Any easy way to shield the cable so this goes away? All the cables which high grade shielding I can find are too rigid to bend to the space they need to fit in.
Get back to the rest home, grandpa!
It sounds like the beginning of the end for corporate-franchise theatres. With this technology, people can build their own theatres in their house for cheap and avoid the big sitting match at the nearby stank theatre. I instinctly remember agents of the MPAA angry about home-set movie theatres, yet the more technology improves and technique and consumption then the closer MPAA and RIAA grow together to prosecute people that download a mastered digital feed through a broadband connection. I am always thinking that MPAA and RIAA are intended to mutually combine their jurisdiction; almost as though they can mind-meld eachother into one monstrosity as did the BATF. Rivaling thought-crimes is when an "agent" arrives on the crim^H^H^H^Hscene with a sound sensor and prosecutes people for detecting patented "soundwaves" irradiating from the home theatre system. Come to think of it, if they hear through private-walls a masculine voice say "I'll be back", that would be possible to be prosecuted as though a public exhibition because distant sensors would detect and discern the commercial and copyrighted sounds.
without prejudice
1) There is no way to tell which direction sound is coming from. All the tests with the fake speakers, and people SWEAR there is sound coming out of them... its psycho-acoustics, just no way to tell (unless you are tripping on acid, because thats the only way to SEE SOUND)
2) 3-D audio, in 360, only requires 2 speakers... any good engineer can make it sound like the audio is coming from right behind you, or above you or whatever
The Admin and the Engineer
and the distance between your stereos should have nothing to do with what you think it does...
the distence between placement of stereo speakers is PURELY dependant upon HOW LOUD you play the audio through them, the louder, the further apart, otherwise, you are destroying the stereo field, it is phasing into crap...
There is no NEED for surround... it is a total commercial construct like Valentine's Day... people say they SWEAR it sounds better, but you have to consider the source... these people are idiots, and 9 times out of 10, their system isn't set up right, just like this guy's system...
The Admin and the Engineer
Power the whole thing off a Tesla coil.
Most consumer setups already have enough hum to cover the VLF interferance...
"We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over." - Aneurin Bevan
No living room is large enough to warant such a setup. In movie theatre the 13 channels aren't discrete by the way, for movie theatres using such a setup. They are just used to spread the sound evenly in the room not to drive audio channels.
;))
Plus most people don't know how to place 2 speaker adequately, imagine 14. Speaker placement is the single most important thing to think about and because most people don't have room built for sound or don't have speaker stands or the money to buy some most people place their speaker where they can not where they should, I seen dumb rich people buy surround setup and place the 5 speaker in front because they had nothing to put them on in the back...
More shocking is the geek who swear he knows sound but buy a crazy good stereo system place one speaker toward his kitchen and the other one toward his living room, to "fill the house"... how pathetic can you be, this guy never heard of stereo imaging or that stereo was actually built to create a third dimension (believe it or not), he thinks stereo means more volume or something like that.
So even though I am sure most people here would place their speaker correctly if given appropriate instructions, I do also believe people here aren't normal, so
Most people, no, lemme rephrase that, nobody needs 13.1 channel of audio in its living room... and gosh just think of the phase cancellation and standing waves that would occur...
Let's hope not. Sound in our local VUE multiplex sucks the big one. Let me just check in the mirror - yep - ear count still stable at 2. I don't have enough audio input channels for 13 speakers - my brain will have to down-mix it to 2.1 anyway...
Maybe when I can get my head upgraded to Quite-Frankly-Its-A-Miracle Labs Brainblaster Porridgy 2, with external 13-ear pack I'll be able to get the full effect from these speakers...
For people like me, though, who listen to music more than movies, having a system that runs more in stereo than surround sounds better for all the equipment that I have. Unfortunately, I don't have DVD-A devices, but I do have turn tables and cd players, and they all sound better when coming out of our floor-standing speakers than being processed as surround.
Guh wha? Where did they get the idea that theaters use 13.1 channels? Do you seriously think that each of those speakers is it's own channel?
Movie theaters use the same 5.1 formats that home theaters use, albeit slightly different codecs. You've got your left, center, and right speakers along the front wall. Everything on the left wall is the left surround, everything on the right wall is the right surround. If it's an EX theater, then the back wall is another channel, otherwise it's just the left and right surrounds as well. Even if it is an EX theater, that's not a true rear sound channel in most instances. Both Dolby Digital:EX and DTS:ES use a matrixing technology to extrapolate the rear center using the same technology in Pro-Logic and NEO:6. So called 7.1 systems simply duplicate that rear center for a left and right rear.
SDDS improved upon this by adding two more channels to the front. DTS has also duplicated this for DTS8 which is in less then 50 theaters nationwide. DTS also has a 10 channel format which will be used in the future once the new XD10 model DTS units are more widespread.
I did recently find out that DTS has a true 6.1 discrete ES format, but it's only available in home theaters, and I don't know of any movies that take advantage of it.
How do I know all this? I'm a projections engineer at our local movie theater. I'm also an audio enthusiast.
My car has a DVD-Audio 5.1 Digital Surround sound system. If that technology is available in my $55,000 car then this will eventually be priced for all those that have the means. Home theaters are really getting sophisticated now. I have a friend who could charge for his theater setup. Right down to the movie posters and popcorn machine.
I just purchased a 7.1 receiver about 1/2 an hour ago. I'm such a behind-the-times loser. Hope I don't lose my slashdot number.
I drank what? -- Socrates
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113749/
http://www.andashdesigns.com/
No, it is possible to tell where sound is coming from. Everyone's ear shape and head shape is different. Even how you are wearing your hair can affect how sound reaches your ears. I don't remember the term for this (how people hear sound differently based on ear shape), but it does exist.
We can tell where sound is coming from and it was very handy long ago when we had to be defensive out in the world, from predators and such. Now it makes our movies more interesting.
There are ways to fake making sound come from behind you (when you are wearing headphones). However, they only estimate and use a generic model, since everyone's profile is different. It sounds fairly good, but isn't perfect.
To conclude, yes, you can tell where sound is coming form.
Andrew
PS: I'm not an audio engineer, but I've been to meetings with them and have talked to people about this very subject (although, not the engineers in question).
I have an old TV with 13:1 sound. It combines 13 channels of sound into one speaker.
Pretty sweet.The stereo effect is not that great, but the surround is not bad when you lock yourself and the TV in a closet to pretend you're at the movies.
"I used to have that really cool,funny sig
I think I remember reading about some company working on sound drivers to mimic this effect with just a pair speakers or headphones.
There is a system for getting 5 channel positional sound from stereo headphones by mimicing the audio characteristics and timing of seperate speakers.
It's called Dolby Headphone and it has been available for a while on portable DVD players and other devices.
A latent existence
With 5.1 and 6.1 and 7.1 all the speakers are in the same plane pretty much. Why not think in 3D not 2D and have at least an overhead speaker? Then when that helicopter flies over it actually sounds as if it's flying over.
Then explain all the psycho-acoustic experiments?
You can try this yourself at home... Hook up your stereo speakers in the front of the room... then, set up a bunch of other "dummy" speakers... turn the music up real loud (actually coming through the stereo speakers only) and use something that is mixed well for stereo... any of the lofi bands from the early '90's that went hifi in the late '90's will do (my personal current mix favorite, Pretty Together by Sloan... I can't figure out how they mixed that so well... but Pink Floyd's The Wall, Momentary Lapse of reason will do, or Eagle's Hotel California) and sit back and gleefully watch your friends as they try to figure out where the sound is coming from! Better yet HIDE your stereo speakers behind some drapped cloth... then it gets really interesting.
Music that is mixed for stereo creates a stereo field... its so weird, it can seem louder in certain areas of the field, and it has nothing to do with proximity to the audio source... I think it has to do with the way the ear perceives different frequencies as louder or softer, even though these frequencies are the same sound pressure (we hear 4K louder, all things being equal)... or it could have to do with the brain (most of what we understand about the human brain comes from bicycle accidents... head trama... we have a long way to go)
anyway, apologies about the "troll"... honestly, I wasn't trolling... I just get so annoyed at these so called "audiophiles" that are more in love with technology than they are with good audio... but I stick by my guns... anything more than stereo is a dickpull, extra speakers are superfluous
there are a lot of audio engineers out there that swear by Surround... but they have good economic reason to do so. Any audio engineer would jump at moving from mixing music, to mixing movie soundtracks... and folie work has to be the most desired work of all because it just seems like so much fun. It seems like for the past 15 years there has been a shift in the music industry, when at any given time, half the top 10 record sales are soundtracks and not albums, per se... it is lucritive. More work to do means more money for engineers... and God bless them, they deserve it.
The Admin and the Engineer
This is just silly... you can't triangulate with audio because we only have 2 ears, and that is all that is needed for the perception of 3D audio
I am upset that there aren't more audio nerds and less people who have read Wittgenstein that which you do not know about, you cannot speak about
its like... can you aim a speaker at a prism, and slice the audio into its constituent frequencies? no. Audio is vibration in air... perceived by the ears. But so much depends on the PERCEPTION.
The Admin and the Engineer
Turn it down instead.
If you turn it up loud, you hear reflections from the walls behind you.
There's a simpler experiment, go to your family doctor and get your hearing checked.
They'll probably snap their fingers beside and behind and in front of you and ask you to directionalize the sound.
You should be able to.
In fact, modern psychoaccoustics is precisely what I was referencing -- experiments that avoid reflections and use sound-proofed rooms so that only the audio sources are in fact a factor.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
point is, you don't know what you are hearing... you can say its reflections, and I'm not saying their not there...
so go ahead, sound proof a room, cover it with Sonex, and put up a bunch of dummy speakers and you will get the same effect from people who don't know which speakers are dummies and which are real
YOU CAN'T SEE SOUND. YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE IT COMES FROM. IT ONLY SOUNDS DIRECTIONAL BECAUSE YOU EXPECT SOUND TO BE COMING FROM THAT WHICH YOU KNOW TO BE THE SOURCE (SORRY DAMN KEY CAPS STUCK AGAIN)
The Admin and the Engineer
Responding to this is practically feeding a troll. You've obviously never read anything on sound engineering or psychoaccoustics.
You *can* prove which direction a sound is coming from, its called shielded directional microphones; they only detect sound on a near straight-line path (picture a camera with a tube over the lens so you can only see in tunnel-vision except at infinity).
If you take such a microphone and a decibel meter and aim it in various directions in a room with sound of any form, you can measure how much of the sound is coming from each direction.
I feel almost silly pointing this out, but you can directionalize sound very easily if your hearing isn't damaged -- just ask someone to pop a balloon behind and to the left slightly you while your eyes are closed and you'll know that's where it was (have them pick random spots around you in a wide open space with little reflective sound).
Sound reflections are what make concert halls sound good and theatres sound bad, its why Bose spent so much time trying to make funny looking speakers that make sound go in lots of directions at once to simulate a live experience (I'm not pro-Bose). Its why ampitheatres are designed the way they are, to create constructive interference with the audio reflections from voices or instruments.
There are exceptions of course -- at lower frequencies (*very low* compared to normal day-to-day events), it is difficult or impossible to directionalize sounds. That's why placement of subwoofers is based on maximum volume, not direction.
Please go read something by someone more educated than yourself on the subject before talking about it like you know anything, or at least admit that you're deaf -- nothing like blind people telling you there's no such thing as colours.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)