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Latest Accessories Make Setting Up Home Theater Systems A Snap
Multi-channel audio has become mainstream and manufacturers have created many types of basic and more sophisticated technologies including wireless surround speakers, virtual surround sound to simplify the installation of home theater systems. I will look at several of the latest technologies that were developed to make installing home theater systems a breeze. I will point out what to look out for when making your buying decision.
As previously installing a TV has been rather easy, the appearance of multi-channel sound has made setting up home theater systems much more difficult by requiring a number of external speakers to create surround sound. The most commonly used 5.1 surround sound format requires setting up a total of 6 loudspeakers. These are one center speaker, two front side speakers, two rear speakers and a subwoofer. The newer 7.1 standard raises this number to 8 by adding two additional side speakers.
Consequently installing a home theater has become quite intricate and long speaker cable runs are often undesirable for aesthetic reasons. Vendors have lately released new products and technologies. These products were created to help simplify the setup of home theater systems.
The first approach is generating so-called virtual speakers by applying signal-processing to the sound and introducing phase shifts and special cues to those audio parts that would ordinarily be sent by the remote speakers. Since the signal processing is based on how the human hearing detects the origin of audio, the sound components which underwent signal processing can be mixed with the front speaker components and broadcast by the front speakers. The viewer is in effect deceived into believing the audio is originating from a location other than the front speakers.
This technology reduces the quantity of needed loudspeakers and eliminates long speaker wires but every human will process sound somewhat differently due to the form of the ear. The signal processing of these virtual surround systems is based on a standard model which was measured with a standard ear. However, virtual surround will not work equally well for every human.
An additional method for simplifying home theater installations and avoiding long speaker cable runs is to utilize wireless surround sound systems or wireless speakers. A wireless solution will typically incorporate a transmitter component that connects to the TV or source as well as wireless amplifiers that will be connected to the remote speakers. Usually the transmitter part will have amplified speaker inputs and line-level inputs. This provides freedom to connect to each type of source. A transmitter volume control helps take full advantage of the dynamic range and eliminates clipping of the sound within the transmitter.
Some wireless speaker systems are designed to connect 2 loudspeakers per wireless amplifier. A better option would come with a wireless amplifier for each remote speaker to get rid of the cord runs between each of the 2 remote loudspeakers. Entry-level wireless kits use FM transmission or audio compression that will deteriorate the sound quality to some extent. More sophisticated wireless kits make use of uncompressed digital audio transmission. Make sure that you choose a wireless system with a low audio latency, at most several milliseconds. This will make certain that the audio from all loudspeakers, including the non-wireless speakers, is in sync. Low latency is also important for good sync with the video. A large latency would lead to an echo effect. This effect would deteriorate the surround effect. Most wireless gadgets work in the 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz frequency bands. Some products utilize the less crowded 5.8 GHz frequency band and as a result have less competition from other wireless products.
Another option are side-reflecting loudspeakers. These products are also known as sound bars. In this case the audio for the remote speakers will be sent by individual loudspeakers positioned at the front at an angle and reflected by walls as to seem to be originating from besides or behind the viewer. This method works best in a square room with minimal interior design and obstacles. It will not work well in many real-world scenarios with diverse room shapes however.