Jargon Buster

Here’s my jargon buster to help you navigate the world of surround sound receivers. If you wish to add anything feel free to drop me a line at contact@surround-sound-receiver.com

AV receivers or audio-video receivers or Home Theatre Receivers - They amplify sound from audio sources as well as route video signals to your TV from various sources such as DVD players.  So basically you plug your speakers, TV, DVD , play station etc into the receiver.

HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) is a compact audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed digital data. Which tells us nothing? Thanks, Wikipedia! Basically expensive cables used to plug all your gear together to get HD picture and sound quality. Be careful not all HDMI cable are the same.

A “channel” in audio is just one separate stream of audio information.  Mono audio sources have one channel.  Stereo sources have two (left and right.)

Subwoofer (or simply “sub”) is a woofer, or a complete loudspeaker, which is dedicated to the reproduction of low-pitched audio frequencies (the “bass”)

Surround sound basically mean having sound coming from all around you hence ‘surround’. Now this comes in a few standard sizes.

The terminology, “x.x”, indicates the number of full-range audio channels and the number of subwoofer channels.

5.1 audio has five normal audio channels (Left, Centre, Right, Left Surround, and Right Surround) and one subwoofer channel (LFE) carrying extended bass.  It’s intended to be reproduced using six speakers.

7.1 audio is an extension on this concept and is useful only with program material that carries the full eight channels.  Examples are the HD version of DTS, and two of the higher-end Dolby Digital formats (Digital Plus and Digital True HD.)  There are seven audio channels (Left Front, Left, Centre, Right, Right Front, Left Surround, and Right Surround) and one subwoofer (LFE).

(below) Standard speaker placement configuration for 7.1 surrounds sound. Dolby and DTS both recommend the same speaker layout as the standard 7.1 surround sound configuration.

It remains to be seen just how many DVD releases (HD-DVD / Blu-Ray) will carry this extended information, so there’s no way to know if the full 7.1 system will be useful to you or worth the additional cost, if any.  In general, though, there’s no disadvantage to having it.

Thanks for that bit ScottyJGA

Dolby Digital is the name for data and audio compression technologies developed by Dolby Laboratories.

DTS is a series of multichannel audio technologies owned by DTS, Inc.

Surround channels are audio channels in surround sound multichannel audio. They primarily serve to diffuse sounds in a movie or music soundtrack. Unlike most typical speaker placements, surround speakers are often intended to radiate such that the sound reflects off walls so that the sound arrives at the listening position indirectly as a reflection rather than a direct wave.