Surround sound is a great add-on to any TV setup, but the jargon is enough to make you dizzy. From DTS to Dolby Atmos, we demystify the tech and its terms.
Surround sound is exactly what it sounds like: a category of products and technologies designed to immerse you in audio from all sides, all angles, and, increasingly, from all heights too.
With Atmos, these limitations were fundamentally changed. Because Atmos introduced far more discrete sound source locations, including those that are positioned above the audience’s heads, a total of 64 became possible. Engineers were also given the ability to manage individual sounds as “objects” that can be moved freely anywhere within a hemisphere of sound, without affecting music, dialogue, or any other non-object parts of the soundtrack.
We’ll come back to Dolby Atmos later — along with some of its competitors — but first, let’s take a step back and talk about all of the surround formats that came before and brought us to this point. Generally speaking, home theaters have one speaker for each channel of sound , but this isn’t a rule. If you had a really large auditorium or ballroom, you might need to double or even triple the number of speakers dedicated to a single channel of sound — it’s all about how much power and control you need for your given space.
It was a genius idea that proved to be a commercial failure. Quadrophonic sound was difficult to create and even harder to play at home due to the expense and complexity of the equipment needed. Keep in mind, this was in the pre-digital era. Pro Logic Playing a VHS tape with Dolby Surround on a conventional Hi-Fi VHS player would let you hear stereo sound, but if you owned additional equipment with Dolby’s Pro Logic circuitry, you could decode Dolby Surround’s two extra channels, which fed the center channel and surround speakers with audio.
DTS: The rival What’s a technology market without a little competition? Dolby more or less dominated the surround-sound landscape for years. Then, in 1993, DTS came along, providing its own digital surround sound mixing services for movie production and first hitting theaters with Jurassic Park. The technology eventually trickled down to LaserDisc and DVD, but was initially available on a very limited selection of discs. DTS uses a higher bit rate and, therefore, delivers more audio information.
To make things even more confusing, each company offered different versions of 6.1 surround. Dolby Digital and THX collaborated to create a version referred to as “EX” or “surround EX.” It uses the tried-and-true matrix encoding method to embed the sixth channel inside the left and right surround signals.
Those who bought a dedicated back surround speaker during the shift to 6.1 now found themselves shopping for a new, matched pair of back surrounds — typically the exact same model they had bought for the left and right surrounds. 9.1: Pro Logic makes a comeback If you’ve been shopping for a receiver, you may have noticed that many offer one or more different versions of Pro Logic processing. In the modern Pro Logic family, we now have Pro Logic II, Pro Logic IIx, and Pro Logic IIz. Before we continue, let’s take a quick look at what each of them does.
Despite the addition of these height channels, Pro Logic IIz does not enable a true 3D placement of sounds. To enable that, you’ll need Dolby Atmos or DTS:X, which we describe below. Audyssey DSX and DSX 2 Audyssey, a company best known for its auto-calibration software found in many of today’s AV receivers, has its own surround solution called Audyssey DSX, which allows for additional speakers beyond the core 5.1 and 7.1 surround formats by upmixing 5.1 and 7.1 signals to add more channels. With the addition of front width and front height channels on top of a 7.1 system, Audyssey allows for 11.1 channels of surround sound.
This immersive hemisphere of sound is made possible by adding discrete channels for ceiling-mounted or ceiling-facing speakers in home theater systems and soundbars. Atmos took off relatively quickly, and most AV receivers above the low-end range of the spectrum now support the format. In fact, every receiver on the list of our favorite AV receivers supports Atmos, even models priced at $500 or less.
One thing to keep in mind with Dolby Atmos is that it’s a finicky beast. In order to hear Dolby Atmos sound, every part of your home theater system — from the source to the speakers — needs to support it. Here’s our full guide to getting great Dolby Atmos sound. It’s worth noting that Sony also has a 3D immersive music format known as Sony 360 Reality Audio that competes with Dolby Atmos Music. It too can be found on some streaming services, and on a limited number of devices.Just like with other types of surround sound, DTS has its own version of object-based audio, DTS:X, which was unveiled in 2015.
DTS Virtual:X DTS also recognizes that not all movie lovers have the space or the time to put together an object-based sound system. Research gathered by DTS showed that less than 30% of customers actually connect height speakers to their systems, and less than 50% even bother connecting surround speakers.
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