Apr
24
Separates versus Receivers
Filed Under Surround Sound | Leave a Comment
The whole separates versus receivers debate has raged on for as long as I can remember and I see no sign of it going away anytime soon. In essence the proponents of separates claim they give you the best sound quality and the best upgrade path. While on the other side of the fence; fans of receivers state that it’s easier (and ultimately less expensive) to just replace a receiver every four to five years when significant advances in technology warrant doing so.
Here’s the thing, both sides are right and wrong to some extent. Firstly receivers do offer the best bang for the buck, more features and the latest advancements are usually what you can expect going with a receiver over separates but that’s not to say separates don’t offer advantages over receivers.
Separates offer you the ability to keep the amplifier section and only change out the pre-processor or vice versa. Often times the amplifier doesn’t really benefit from an upgrade (assuming we’re starting with a relatively good amplifier to begin with) as much as the pre-processor.
Apr
15
Peak vs. Continuous Power
Filed Under Speakers, Surround Sound | Leave a Comment
The whole peak vs. continuous power thing is a sticky wicket (I’ve wanted to say that all day long) as there are so many variables to consider, even trying to describe the pitfalls of relying on the measurements is a pitfall unto itself. However there are a few rules you should keep in mind whenever you’re trying to decipher amplifier power ratings from electronics manufacturers, and specifically power ratings from Japanese consumer electronics companies.
The whole peak versus continuous wattage rating Shtick has gone on so long that most people don’t even give it a second thought. Rightfully so because by now with as much stretching of the truth, ok who am I kidding, lying that’s gone on surround the idea, that’s about all it’s worth.
Listen I’ve got a 15 year old amplifier nominally rated at 50 watts that would devour all but the very best of the current 130 watt plus surround receivers. Simply put a lot of companies, maybe even most companies exaggerate their continuous wattage ratings so badly that we’ve all shifted into a kind of well if 12 = 10, 14 must equal 12 mentality when even that isn’t very telling of what these ratings are actually capable of telling us.
Mar
25
Identifying Ground Loops
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Some call them ground loops, some a 60 cycle hums while others use the term mains hum. Whatever term you use to describe the annoyance, knowing how to trouble-shoot them is half (more really) the battle of eliminating them. A ground loop is a hum associated with audible oscillation at the frequency of the mains alternating current, i.e. your homes electrical service. In nine out of ten cases I run across group loops (hum) in audio systems that usually originate from the cable feed and or the satellite television lead from the dish.
Ground loops are typically (oddly enough) a grounding issue. Often times it’s either a broken ground that results in a hum or an intact ground that introduces the hum directly. The quickest way to eliminate the satellite or cable is just to remove the satellite or cable connection from the system and listen for the hum. If the hum remains with the cable removed you’ll need to keep looking at other pieces of gear and or connections.
If removing the satellite or cable TV feed makes the hum go away you’ll want to try one of two things, first trace your cable tv (or satellite) line back to its entry point into the house. If the feed has a splitter check to see if its grounded, if so lift the ground and then go back inside and listen again. If the hums gone you’ll want to look into alternate ways to protect you A/V system than the ground provided by the cable company. On the other hand if you see that the cable (or sat) isn’t grounded before it comes into the house that may be the culprit. All in all troubleshooting these problems is a process of elimination and a bit of experimentation afterwards.
Mar
20
Dolby Digital or DTS?
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One of the age old arguments in home theater has to be Dolby Digital versus DTS for surround sound. You’ll hear a wide range of reasons why one may be better than the other or why one might be better than the other, but it’s really much simpler than might’s and maybes. This is a case of the “bigger” technology not necessarily being the better technology.
Even though Dolby Digital processing is more familiar to the consumer at large, it’s actually DTS that holds the slight (depending on how you look at things) edge in overall sound quality. DTS uses less compression, roughly 1,536,000 bits per second versus Dolby Digitals 448,000 bits per second. Yes you’ll hear some say “but Dolby Digital has a more efficient encoding scheme, it doesn’t need as many bits to deliver the same quality of sound” or something along those lines. Simply put, it just doesn’t pan out that way in the real world,
More bits is more bits, efficiency is great but the data transfer rate can bottleneck performance just as fast as a low-bit encode. Now none of this is meant to paint Dolby Digital in a poor light, it’s a great codec and one that’s served us well, it and DTS however are bettered by PCM, TrueHD, DTS-HD and DTS-HD Master audio. So while this may be of interest to those of you with huge DVD collections, know that sun is already (albeit slowly) setting on both Dolby Digital and standard DTS in terms of overall performance.
Mar
1
Wireless Rear Speakers
Filed Under Surround Sound | Leave a Comment
I’ll be the first to admit I’m a bit old fashioned about certain things and wireless speakers are one of them, but before I get too deep into this I want to explain what this is. I’m talking about wireless rear speakers for use in home theater settings where it’s just not possible or cost prohibitive to run wiring for the rear channels, not wireless speakers systems in general. Ok about the being old fashioned part, up until very recently wireless speakers were a bit of a pariah in the industry. They had poor frequency response, were subject to pops, crackles, outright signal loss and a myriad of other problems that just made them more hassle than they were worth. Thats slowly changing however but I do stress slowly.
Products like the “Rocketfish - Universal Wireless Rear Speaker Kit” make wireless rear speakers possible but in all honesty the sound quality is quite poor, mostly due to the built-in amplifier used. Would you notice with a small pair of low-quality bookshelf speakers? Probably not but pair them with something a little larger and capable of resolving some detail and you’ll quickly hear the difference. That’s not to say all wireless speaker systems are to be avoided, in the last few years the transmission rate has been pushed up as high as 1.5mbs at 2.4GHz which is a big improvement over early models.
Feb
18
5.1 Surround Sound and Beyond
Filed Under Surround Sound | Leave a Comment
We all know about surround sound, right? yeah I knew we did but did you know that surround sound comes in many different flavors? Aside from the different formats (we’ll get into those later) there are actually five (at least) different surround sound configurations on the market today. First off we have 2.0 or stereo, while obviously not a proprietary Dolby Digital configuration it is important to be able to recognize this format as many older movies shown on cable and satellite use 2.0 audio. Why is this important you ask? many modern receivers allow you to apply Dolby PLIIx processing to stereo sources which will give you a surround effect with just two channels.
From there we move into the venerable Dolby Digital 5.1 which encompasses a huge portion of our overall surround sound world, from DVD’s to movies on cable and satellite 5.1 is the bread and butter channel configuration for home surround sound playback. Simply put if you’ve heard surround sound at home there’s a good chance it was a 5.1 configuration. A “5.1″ speaker system consists of a discrete channel for left front, right front, center, left rear, right rear and subwoofer.
Moving right along we get into the 6.1 channel configurations, 6.1 really took root in the latter half of the decade with the configuration finding its way into receivers at all price points, as a matter of fact its probably harder to find a 5.1 receiver now than it is to find a 6.1 capable receiver. 6.1 adds a back surround or “center surround” in some circles to the equation; this provides a smoother transition of sound between the individual speakers.
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