What is surround sound?
Sound adds weight and presence to our experience of images. From the creak of approaching footsteps to the rumbling of a spaceship flying out of sight, surround sound makes movie images feel more real. Equipping your home theater with at least 5 speakers, plus a subwoofer to handle the bass sounds, is what helps transform a big TV into an incredible home theater.
Surround sound really began in the 1960’s with the development of quadraphonic sound. This was a system of encoding four channels of information within a two channel recording. The result was that ambient (or effects) sounds could be imbedded in a two channel recording that could be played by a normal record player and passed through to a receiver or amplifier with a Quadraphonic decoder. This decoder would then pass the signals to four separate speakers. Today, surround sound is very similar. In it’s basic form (Dolby Surround) four sound channels, right, left, center and rear are encoded into a two channel audio track and played back with a surround decoder. This decoder sends the individual sounds to their respective speakers and the rear channel adds the “surround” effect, with sounds coming from behind the listening position.
