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Why 7.1 Surround Sound is Overkill For Most Homes
RX8 writes "Home Theater expert Mark Fleischmann explains why you should not fall for the 7.1 hype and why 5.1 surround sound is adequate for most homes. From the article: 'With the marketing of 6.1 and 7.1 surround, the industry has decisively outwitted itself. It has convinced many consumers to buy new receivers and more speakers. But it has also undermined the 5.1-channel standard, which is more appropriate for the home, slowing the acceptance of surround sound in general.'"
This whole "clipping is a fact of life except in expensive systems". No, not so much actually. I'd be really supprised if most good reciever/speaker combos ever clipped. It's not hard to build an amp that has plenty of power for home theatre, espically when you are talking the distances at which the speakers will be placed. Generally people aren't going to be running them at a whole lot more than a couple watts RMS.
The thing is that recievers are all transistor amps, and clipping is really noticable on transistors. Transistors are essentally completely linear up to a point, then they just stop hard and don't put out any more power. It isn't quite as harsh as digital clipping, but close. It's not smooth like tube clipping where the tube slowly enters a non-linear zone.
Also, more channels wouldn't give a reciever any more reason to clip. Each channel is a seperate amp. What matters in regards to clipping is the amount of power going in to a single channel. If it's more than the channel can handle, you clip, if not, you don't. What's happening on the other channels isn't relivant.
He's also wrong that there's no reason to want more speakers just because there's no seperate encoding for them. If that were the case, why the hell do theatres have more than 5 speakers? Well, because the sound would suck. You have people all spread out, you need surround speakers all along the walls to get a good, diffuse surround field that's pleasant for all of them.
It's actually the same reason behind a centre channel. In theory on a good setup, such a thing sould be unnecessary. Indeed you find this is the case, if you have two quality speakers that are focused on a listener, they can generate a perfectly centred sound by playing in unison. No need for a speaker there. However, that relies on a very small sweet spot. If people are spread out, the illusion breaks. So, we just put a speaker in the dead centre, and send the sound there. It makes the sound seem to come from the middle of the screen, regardless of your angle to it.
The real reason not to get 7.1 in most cases is you are wasting money because your listening area is too small to really benefit from more speakers. However, it's not going to make your reciever clip or anything, unless you've got a seriously screwed up reciever.