I'm trying to figure out how you mount it. Does it hang from above the center of the room like a light fixture? Stick a light bulb in the thing and you have something really snazy. #eopsi24r3portable
@ryguyli: Can't be sure about the rest, but clearly the rear set are not connected. This is the kind of "Architectural Digest" photo that drives me bonkers with its obvious "can't really live in this room it's so damned fake" styling.
@oschultz: The 2 extra refers to the center rear speakers. It's all about ambience in the surrounds anyway, so if you don't have them, you're not missing a huge amount.
In a multi-speaker setup, the center channel speaker handles about 80% of the dialog and effects, with the left and right fronts handling most of the rest. The rear surrounds would pick up ambient sounds. If you remember the bathroom shootout scene in True Lies, you could hear shell casings falling to the tile floor off to the back and sides of you. That's the work of the surrounds.
Center rear speakers localize the sound even more, where a 5.1 setup would approximate the location of the sound.
The problem is that not a whole lot of existing content is mixed for 7.1 so you're not missing that much. It'll be much more prevalent in newer sound design.
My bottom line recommendation to friends getting new systems is to spend the most money on the three speakers in the front (most on the center) and on the sub. All the rest is gravy. I added my surrounds two years after getting the rest.
@dc-united: If you will also be using the receiver for stereo music, it's not a bad idea to spend some money for better FL/FR speakers, but as dc-united stated, the center channel does most of the work when watching movies mixed for 5.1/7.1...
@dc-united: I think my advice would be spend *all* your money on your left and right front speakers. If your front speakers can't image sufficiently well to do a phantom center, you are in trouble.
The only excuse in my mind for a center channel is to anchor the dialog to the screen for people who are too off-axis to allow the speakers to image properly. The cost of that is creating much more problematic room acoustics issues with combining/canceling waveforms. I think most people would be better off leaving the center channel out.
@AmphetamineCrown: Any reasonably good surround receiver isn't going to be doubling up the dialogue output to both the center and FR/FL speakers, yeah it will push the dialogue track out the FR/FL speakers but at a much reduced loudness, if you are hearing that track at an equal loudness from all three front speakers you have some leveling settings seriously borked in your receiver...
11/03/09
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06/29/09
That is all.
06/29/09
[snip] flash [snip] sucks.
That is all.
06/29/09
06/29/09
and if you say children then i say LOSE the kids. :-)
07/01/09
06/29/09
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06/29/09
3 HDMI != "a zillion inputs"...
06/29/09
06/15/09
06/15/09
No matter how much you polish a 2D turd, it will never be 3D...
06/15/09
06/15/09
No matter how much you polish a 2D turd, it will never be 3D...
06/15/09
06/15/09
06/15/09
Apparently, just like whoever owns this setup. Study the picture.
06/15/09
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06/15/09
In a multi-speaker setup, the center channel speaker handles about 80% of the dialog and effects, with the left and right fronts handling most of the rest. The rear surrounds would pick up ambient sounds. If you remember the bathroom shootout scene in True Lies, you could hear shell casings falling to the tile floor off to the back and sides of you. That's the work of the surrounds.
Center rear speakers localize the sound even more, where a 5.1 setup would approximate the location of the sound.
The problem is that not a whole lot of existing content is mixed for 7.1 so you're not missing that much. It'll be much more prevalent in newer sound design.
My bottom line recommendation to friends getting new systems is to spend the most money on the three speakers in the front (most on the center) and on the sub. All the rest is gravy. I added my surrounds two years after getting the rest.
06/15/09
06/15/09
The only excuse in my mind for a center channel is to anchor the dialog to the screen for people who are too off-axis to allow the speakers to image properly. The cost of that is creating much more problematic room acoustics issues with combining/canceling waveforms. I think most people would be better off leaving the center channel out.
06/15/09