Home Theater

Latest Accessories Make Building Multi-Channel Audio Kits A Snap

The process of installing multi-channel audio speakers in home theater systems is quite tedious and suppliers have invented new products and technologies such as wireless surround sound speakers or surround sound wireless headphones recently to help simplify the installation. I will look at several of the products and technologies which have appeared and give some pointers about choosing proper components for a hassle-free setup.

Whilst in the past installing a TV has been quite easy, the appearance of multi-channel sound has made setting up home theater systems a great deal more difficult by requiring a number of external speakers to create surround sound. While the traditional 5.1 format requires 6 speakers: a front center, two front side speakers, two rear speaker and a subwoofer, the more modern 7.1 format adds two additional side speakers.

As a result the installation of home theater systems has turn out to be a fairly complicated process. A lot of houses are not pre-wired for surround sound. Furthermore, long speaker cables are often unattractive. Vendors have lately introduced new products and technologies. These products were developed to help simplify the installation of home theater products.

The first option is called virtual surround sound. This solution will take the audio components which would typically be broadcast by the remote loudspeakers. It then uses signal processing to those components and inserts special cues and phase delays. After that these components are mixed with the front speaker sound. Because the signal processing is based on how the human hearing detects the origin of sound, the audio components which underwent signal processing can be mixed with the front speaker components and sent by the front speakers. The viewer is in effect deceived into believing the sound is coming from a location other than the front speakers.

The advantage of this technology is that only a handful of speakers are needed and no long speaker cable has to be run all through the viewing environment. The disadvantage though is that each person will process sound differently due to the dissimilar shape of each human ear. The signal processing is based on measurements which are done using a standard human ear model. If the shape of the ear changes, sound will travel in a different way. As a result virtual surround will not work equally well for everybody.

Another approach for simplifying home theater setups and eliminating long speaker cable runs is to use wireless surround sound products or wireless speakers. A wireless solution will typically incorporate a transmitter module that connects to the TV or source and in addition wireless amplifiers that will be connected to the remote speakers. Generally the transmitter part will come with amplified speaker inputs and line-level inputs. This offers flexibility to connect to any type of source. A transmitter volume control helps maximize the dynamic range and avoids clipping of the sound inside the transmitter.

Whilst a number of wireless speaker products come with a wireless amplifier that connects to two speakers, other devices offer individual wireless amplifiers for every speaker. Entry-level wireless systems utilize FM broadcast or audio compression which will degrade the sound quality to some extent. More sophisticated wireless kits make use of uncompressed digital audio transmission. Make certain that you choose a wireless system with a low audio latency, at most a few milliseconds. This will ensure that the sound from all loudspeakers, including the non-wireless speakers, is in sync. Low latency is also vital for good sync with the video. If the latency is more than 10 ms then there will be an echo effect which will degrade the surround sound. Many wireless products operate in the 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz frequency bands. Some products utilize the less crowded 5.8 GHz frequency band and therefore have less competition from other wireless products.

An alternative method, which is often named sound bars utilizes side-reflecting speakers. The audio that would normally be broadcast by the remote loudspeakers is instead sent by loudspeakers at the front. These front loudspeakers broadcast the audio at an angle. Then the sound is reflected by the side and rear walls and appears to be originating from besides or behind the viewer. The effect by and large is dependent upon the shape of the room and interior design and not function well in many real-world scenarios because of different room shapes and obstacles in the room.

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