Posts Tagged ‘Surround Sound’
Question Asked: Why Are My Home Theater Speakers Crackling?
There’s a number of factors that could be causing this, and unfortunately, you didn’t give me any specifics about your setup. So, we’ll generalize, and hope that it helps.
Speakers can crackle because they’re blown. A “blown” speaker generally isn’t completely dead, but one of the drivers (whether it’s low, mid, or high range) has simply worn out.
In cheaper speakers, it’s usually more financially sound to just get new ones. For higher end speakers, a repair is worth the money in most cases.
However, you may not have a blown speaker at all. If this is something that just started recently, it’s likely blown. However, if you’ve made changes to your setup, and then the crackling started, it’s likely a setting issue.
Check your surround sound receiver, to ensure that you’ve got the right “size” selected for your speakers. It’s usually either “large” or “small”, so select the right one.
Also, check your connections. Are all your speakers hooked up correctly, and secured tightly? Sometimes a loose wire can cause a short, and thus crackling.
What decibal are you listening to movies/music at? Some home theater surround sound recievers can put out more volume than speakers can handle, which would cause the issue.
Your safest bet is to call the manufacturer of your speakers. If they’re still under warranty, and you’ve checked everything I suggest above, have them replaced. It’s usually a pretty simply process, and may get rid of that annoying crackle.
Question Asked: What’s The Difference Between 5.1, 6.1, and 7.1 Surround Sound?
The concept of all three (5.1, 6.1 and 7.1) are all relatively the same – to engulf you in the sound of your movie and/or television show.
How they do that, varies by number of speakers. The “traditional” and most common surround sound system is 5.1 What that means is that you’ve got five surround sound speakers, and one subwoofer, hence the 5.1. Your receiver takes the audio from your DVD player (or HD cable box, in some cases) and sends the right sounds to the right speakers. Your living room would look like this, if you had a 5.1 surround sound system.
5.1 Surround Sound
You can see, in 5.1, you’ve got a front pair of speakers (left and right) where your major action noises happen (explosions, car chases, etc.) A center speaker resides in the middle, usually above or below the tv itself. The center channel is where all your dialog will come from. In the rear, you’ve got your “surround” speakers. These are used generally for sounds that are supposed to sound like they’re behind you. Hence the placement.
A 6.1 system is essentially the same, with the addition of a 6th speaker, which is called a rear center channel. 6.1 looks like this.
6.1 Surround Sound
You can see that it’s virtually the same, with the additional rear center channel. This allows sounds to “sweep” across your back channels. So, for instance, if a helicopter flies across your screen from right to left, you’ll hear the sound fly from right to center to left, behind you. More and more movies are starting to come out with 6.1 soundtracks, but not quite enough for the average person to want to have the extra speaker.
7.1 is considered the “best” of surround sound, and is generally only for people who obsess over sound (who are called audiophiles) and watch movies constantly. Like me. 7.1 changes the dynamic by adding a second set of surround sound speakers, like so:
7.1 Surround Sound
You can see, in 7.1, that you’ve got an additional set of surround sound speakers, totalling 7. This allows you to engulf yourself even more in the audio coming out of each channel. There’s very few DVDs that are coming out with a 7.1 soundtrack, which is unfortunate. If you have a decent receiver, it will try to trick your speakers into thinking sounds should be coming out of them, but it’s not true 7.1. Though when you do happen to get a DVD with 7.1, it’s an amazing sound.
To sum up, the difference between 5.1, 6.1, and 7.1 is simply the number of speakers/channels that you’ve got in your system.
Question Asked: What’s The Difference Between High Definition and Standard?
The short answer: a lot.
The longer answer is more complicated, and can be confusing. Try to follow me.
There’s two big differences between High Definition (HD) and Standard Definition (SD, or Analog). The first, picture quality. The second, sound.
The confusing part, is that there’s a number of different HD formats that you’ve probably been hearing about: 720p, 1080i, and 1080p. Let’s start with the easy part, the i and p bits.
The i stands for interlaced.
The p stands for progressive.
Both the i and p will make more sense when I explain what the numbers themselves mean:
The number represents the resolution on your screen. The resolution is actually how many lines of picture you’re seeing. So, common sense would tell you that the higher then number, the better the picture, right? Right.
So, how do the i and p come into play? Simple. An interlaced signal is alternating lines of picture. Picture it like flickering evens and odds on your screen every nanosecond.
The progressive signal doesn’t alternate lines, it shows them all at once.
So, in theory, a 1080p picture has twice as many lines of picture onscreen at any given nanosecond, than a 1080i signal. The real question is, can your eyes see the difference? Probably not.
The other big difference in HD and SD is sound. Standard definition comes with regular two channel stereo sound. Boring. Yawn! HD comes with 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround Sound. Which means that surround sound systems aren’t just for DVDs anymore.
This website has a great comparison of DVD (about 480i) versus HD (1080i). You can see the differnce in the quality just by looking at it.
Does your SD signal look as good as a DVD? No, probably not. It can vary (depending on your provider) from between 300i and 480i. Generally, a DVD will look better than cable. HD will look better than a DVD. Blu-Ray will look better than HD.
Should you upgrade to HD? That depends on your TV viewing habits. Do you like TV? Do you want to have the best picture and sound available when you watch your favorite shows? Upgrading to HD is the next step in the way we watch TV. By February 2009, everything is supposed to be broadcast in HD/Digital, so you should consider upgrading.
Is there a downside to having an HD TV? Yep, of course. While the cost prohibitive part of buying an HD TV has gone away for the most part, there’s still a big downside; SD content. Watching a non-HD show on your HD TV can sometimes be painful ( Comedy Central, for example). The HD TVs generally try to ‘upscale’ SD content, which doesn’t always work out for the best.
Overall, High Definition TV is a great experience. I, for one, am glad I made the upgrade, and have never looked back.