Will 7.1 make 5.1 sound weaker?

digitalvideo

I currently have a 7.1 surround sound system for HT and was wondering if a properly setup 5.1 system will sound better than a 7.1 setup. Will a 7.1 setup weaken and take away the strengths of a 5.1 system? Or will a properly set up 7.1 setup beat a 5.1 proper setup?

My Polk 7.1 setup:

Polk RTi A9 front tower speakers L/R
Polk CSi A6 center
Polk FXi A6 sides
Polk RTi A3 rears
SVS PB 12 Ultra sub

Pioneer SC-05 a/v
Sunfire Cinema Grand Signature 400 7.1 amp

The Pio reciever decodes only and the amp powers all 7 speakers.

bigaudiofanatic

What size room do you have?

cstmar01

Its really going to depend on how much room you have. a cramped 7.1 is not going to sound as good as a 5.1 in the same space. Let us know the size of the room and we can give ya some suggestions from there.

digitalvideo

My main tv room above my garage is a 27 x 27 room with over 9 foot ceilings. That has a 7.1 setup, I'm satisfied with that. I'm doing over my basement and it "had" a similar dimension with 27 x 27 but the ceilings are much lower, under 7 feet. My wife decided to cut the basement in half where one side would be a gym and the other would be the entertainment/living area with couches. So the HT area of the basement is around 12 x 27. The tv will be hung on the wall that is 12 feet wide so we can fit a bar and bathroom down the other end. It's tight and narrow. How would I set up a 5.1 in that space? I was thinking of the Definitive Technology Mythos 5.1 surround system to put in there.

My basement dimensions in the tv area:

<--12 feet wall-->

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digitalvideo

I was thinking of putting the same setup in my basement that is in my upstairs main tv room but I'm not sure. I do like the Def Tech from what I heard and would like that in my basement, just don't know how to configure it in that space.

Also, is my 7.1 setup in my main upstairs room a good setup for that size?

wutadumsn23

I would say that the 7.1 is good for the 27x27 room, and I would also suggest you try the 5.1 in the smaller room. Don't try to cram two extra speakers in there just to have 7.1, a well placed/setup 5.1 will outperform a cramped up 7.1 anyday.

-Jeff

Slinger182

Are there even any good movies out that are in 7.1? I searched at blu-ray.com and only found 183 and didn't find any of my favorite movies....

comfortablycurt

Slinger182 wrote: »

Are there even any good movies out that are in 7.1? I searched at blu-ray.com and only found 183 and didn't find any of my favorite movies....

There aren't many. It's not really worth it to go to 7.1 yet IMO.

digitalvideo

The latest Rambo movie is 7.1, and Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas. Those are of the very few.

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Rambo-Blu-ray/737/

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Nightmare-Before-Christmas-Blu-ray/927/

kuntasensei

It doesn't matter if movies are in 7.1 on Blu-ray, since they will never be 7.1 in the theater. 7.1's purpose is to recreate theatrical 6.1 (or more specifically, 5.1 EX/ES) in a smaller home space. The two rear surrounds are to prevent perceived reversal and allow for more precise steering across the rear soundstage to simulate the placement of sounds in a theatrical side/rear array. Steering logic such as DPL-IIx can be applied to damn near every 5.1 track out there to recreate the theatrical sound, since the vast majority of 5.1 mixes today are done in a way that makes them compatible with 5.1 EX/ES theatrical systems.

7.1 native material on Blu-ray isn't really native at all. It's just them providing the steering logic before encoding instead of you doing it from a 5.1 track at home. Don't let the lack of 7.1 tracks on Blu-ray make you think that there isn't a use for 7.1 in your home theater. People have just forgotten why 7.1 exists and have been snowed by these pseudo-7.1 tracks being pawned off on Blu-ray.

comfortablycurt

kuntasensei wrote: »

It doesn't matter if movies are in 7.1 on Blu-ray, since they will never be 7.1 in the theater. 7.1's purpose is to recreate theatrical 6.1 (or more specifically, 5.1 EX/ES) in a smaller home space. The two rear surrounds are to prevent perceived reversal and allow for more precise steering across the rear soundstage to simulate the placement of sounds in a theatrical side/rear array. Steering logic such as DPL-IIx can be applied to damn near every 5.1 track out there to recreate the theatrical sound, since the vast majority of 5.1 mixes today are done in a way that makes them compatible with 5.1 EX/ES theatrical systems.

7.1 native material on Blu-ray isn't really native at all. It's just them providing the steering logic before encoding instead of you doing it from a 5.1 track at home. Don't let the lack of 7.1 tracks on Blu-ray make you think that there isn't a use for 7.1 in your home theater. People have just forgotten why 7.1 exists and have been snowed by these pseudo-7.1 tracks being pawned off on Blu-ray.

Regardless, I'm yet to watch a movie and feel that it was improved by 7.1. I had a 5.1 setup for a long time...then I had a 7.1 setup for about 6 months, then went back to 5.1. I didn't really feel like going to 7.1 gave me any improvements. I doubt I'll ever have anything bigger than a 5.1 setup again. When it's properly setup, a 5.1 system has nothing to envy from a 7.1 setup in my experience.

The way I see it, the addition of all these extra channels to our HT's is basically a way to get people to spend more money on something that they don't really need. It makes for a cool gimmick that loses it's luster after the first few minutes.

Just my $.02

wutadumsn23

I am with Curt on this one, I had 7.1 in the past, but went back to 5.1 when I built my new system. It wasn't worth the money to get the 7.1 running again, when the 5.1 did just as good, if not better. A well setup 5.1 will outperform a cramped up 7.1 anyday. Just because an AVR can run 7 speakers, doesn't mean it has to. Also just my $.02.

-Jeff

kuntasensei

Oh, I'll give you that a properly set up 5.1 system will outperform a poorly placed 7.1 system. My point was that people always say stuff like "there aren't many 7.1 movies, so 7.1 is unnecessary", when that completely ignores what 7.1 was designed to do in the home space for the vast majority of 5.1 tracks.

Knucklehead

Next question.....What is the minimum room size for a 7.1 to be effective?

wutadumsn23

Knucklehead wrote: »

Next question.....What is the minimum room size for a 7.1 to be effective?

Hmmmm, I would imagine there is no specific measurement where 5.1 becomes obsolete and 7.1 becomes mandatory, I would say it would have to be determined by having a 5.1 and having a feeling of something "lacking"? That is a pretty good question, hopefully someone has a better answer than me.

-Jeff

kuntasensei

It's not really a question of minimum room size so much as whether you need it in your particular space. If you have a good amount of room between your seating and your back wall, rear surrounds will help recreate the sound you get from the rear array in a theater. Basically, look at Dolby's 7.1 placement guidelines. If you can place the rear surrounds at the angles they dictate in your room, then go for it. Otherwise, focus on precise placement of a 5.1 system and you'll likely be happier.

7.1 will never become mandatory, because it will never be a theatrical format. 7.1 isn't needed in the theatrical space because the rear array has enough room to combine with the sound from the side arrays to adequately steer the surround audio. Technically speaking, you can recreate the theatrical presentation with 6.1 (or 5.1 + EX/ES, not strictly discrete 6.1). The problem is that a single speaker behind your head has an unfortunate tendency to be perceived as coming from in front of you. This psychoacoustic issue is remedied by having the same audio come from two speakers, which is why 7.1 was first created for the home. With Dolby EX or DTS-ES on a 7.1 system, the rear surround audio is sent to both rear speakers equally. Newer 7.1 steering methods such as DPL-IIx take this one step further and analyze the amount of audio in each side surround to determine where across the 4-speaker array the audio should be placed based on the sound's phase and comparative level. This means that sound can be precisely placed across the rear soundstage without the problem of perceived reversal from a single point source behind the listener.

So like I said... There will never be 7.1 in the theater because there's no need for it. In the home, it exists solely to address issues with 6.1 speaker placement. If you can be critical about the speaker placement and are careful with the setup, a 7.1 system can give you better sound than a 5.1 system, even if your room isn't quite ideal for it. In my room, I'm running 9.2 with height channels and rear surrounds, and my room is hardly ideal... but with careful speaker placement, I get very precise steering across the rear. 9.1's not gonna become a theatrical standard either... but it sounds awfully damn nice in my room. Whether 7.1 will be worth it to you is completely up to you.

Knucklehead

kuntasensei wrote: »

It's not really a question of minimum room size so much as whether you need it in your particular space. If you have a good amount of room between your seating and your back wall, rear surrounds will help recreate the sound you get from the rear array in a theater. Basically, look at Dolby's 7.1 placement guidelines. If you can place the rear surrounds at the angles they dictate in your room, then go for it. Otherwise, focus on precise placement of a 5.1 system and you'll likely be happier.

7.1 will never become mandatory, because it will never be a theatrical format. 7.1 isn't needed in the theatrical space because the rear array has enough room to combine with the sound from the side arrays to adequately steer the surround audio. Technically speaking, you can recreate the theatrical presentation with 6.1 (or 5.1 + EX/ES, not strictly discrete 6.1). The problem is that a single speaker behind your head has an unfortunate tendency to be perceived as coming from in front of you. This psychoacoustic issue is remedied by having the same audio come from two speakers, which is why 7.1 was first created for the home. With Dolby EX or DTS-ES on a 7.1 system, the rear surround audio is sent to both rear speakers equally. Newer 7.1 steering methods such as DPL-IIx take this one step further and analyze the amount of audio in each side surround to determine where across the 4-speaker array the audio should be placed based on the sound's phase and comparative level. This means that sound can be precisely placed across the rear soundstage without the problem of perceived reversal from a single point source behind the listener.

So like I said... There will never be 7.1 in the theater because there's no need for it. In the home, it exists solely to address issues with 6.1 speaker placement. If you can be critical about the speaker placement and are careful with the setup, a 7.1 system can give you better sound than a 5.1 system, even if your room isn't quite ideal for it. In my room, I'm running 9.2 with height channels and rear surrounds, and my room is hardly ideal... but with careful speaker placement, I get very precise steering across the rear. 9.1's not gonna become a theatrical standard either... but it sounds awfully damn nice in my room. Whether 7.1 will be worth it to you is completely up to you.

Thanks kuntasensei, makes sense.

digitalvideo

kuntasensei wrote: »

It's not really a question of minimum room size so much as whether you need it in your particular space. If you have a good amount of room between your seating and your back wall, rear surrounds will help recreate the sound you get from the rear array in a theater. Basically, look at Dolby's 7.1 placement guidelines. If you can place the rear surrounds at the angles they dictate in your room, then go for it. Otherwise, focus on precise placement of a 5.1 system and you'll likely be happier.

7.1 will never become mandatory, because it will never be a theatrical format. 7.1 isn't needed in the theatrical space because the rear array has enough room to combine with the sound from the side arrays to adequately steer the surround audio. Technically speaking, you can recreate the theatrical presentation with 6.1 (or 5.1 + EX/ES, not strictly discrete 6.1). The problem is that a single speaker behind your head has an unfortunate tendency to be perceived as coming from in front of you. This psychoacoustic issue is remedied by having the same audio come from two speakers, which is why 7.1 was first created for the home. With Dolby EX or DTS-ES on a 7.1 system, the rear surround audio is sent to both rear speakers equally. Newer 7.1 steering methods such as DPL-IIx take this one step further and analyze the amount of audio in each side surround to determine where across the 4-speaker array the audio should be placed based on the sound's phase and comparative level. This means that sound can be precisely placed across the rear soundstage without the problem of perceived reversal from a single point source behind the listener.

So like I said... There will never be 7.1 in the theater because there's no need for it. In the home, it exists solely to address issues with 6.1 speaker placement. If you can be critical about the speaker placement and are careful with the setup, a 7.1 system can give you better sound than a 5.1 system, even if your room isn't quite ideal for it. In my room, I'm running 9.2 with height channels and rear surrounds, and my room is hardly ideal... but with careful speaker placement, I get very precise steering across the rear. 9.1's not gonna become a theatrical standard either... but it sounds awfully damn nice in my room. Whether 7.1 will be worth it to you is completely up to you.

How do you get sound from all 9 speakers when there are no 9.1 movies out. Are all your speakers working in 9.1?

Also, are there even amps and recievers that have 9.1 channels or do you need to buy two seperate amps and two recievers and connect like 5 speakers to one amp and reciever and the other 4 or 5 speakers to the other amp and reciever?

digitalvideo

For my basement that is now 12x27 and the tv hung on the wall that is 12 feet wide what is a very good 5.1 speaker setup? I hear the best bang for the buck is the new Def Tech Mythos setup. Do any of you know how and where I should place those speakers for my specific space?

kuntasensei

digitalvideo wrote: »

How do you get sound from all 9 speakers when there are no 9.1 movies out. Are all your speakers working in 9.1?

Also, are there even amps and recievers that have 9.1 channels or do you need to buy two seperate amps and two recievers and connect like 5 speakers to one amp and reciever and the other 4 or 5 speakers to the other amp and reciever?

Well, I'm using 8 ohm speakers, so my TX-NR1007 is perfectly capable of driving them all (no external amps), especially because I'm offloading bass duties to my SVS 20-39CS+ which is running off a Samson 1000 rackmount amp. Onkyo's TX-NR1007 is a 9.2 receiver (9 channels of amplification, 2 independently adjustable subwoofer outputs), and you can use the additional two channels either for DPL-IIz height channels or Audyssey DSX height or width channels. There are also 7.1 receivers out with DPL-IIz that let you use the 2 extra channels for heights instead of rear surrounds. I'm using DPL-IIz with a pair of Monitor 30s for height channels, placed about 3.5' above my RTi70 mains.

Yes, all 9 speakers are active. DPL-IIz derives the height information from audio inherent in the surrounds and works with existing material because it conforms to the way mixes are already done for the theater. To create the rear surrounds, DPL-IIx analyzes the side surrounds and steers audio to the rear based on whether the audio is in phase and based on the level correlation between the two speakers.

For instance, let's say a mixer who is mixing for theatrical Dolby EX wants to place a sound directly behind you. What he does is mix the sound equally into both side surrounds, then the EX decoder (or DPL-IIx at home) steers that audio to the rear. Similarly, if a mixer wants sound to be diffuse (such as weather effects, wind, rain, helicopters flying overhead, etc.), he mixes the same sound into the left and right surrounds, but OUT OF PHASE. This diffuses the sound much in the same way that dipole speakers do, giving it a sound of "somewhere over there", except when it's placed in the left and right speaker arrays in a theater, it sounds like "somewhere up above me". Then directional cues such as thunder are mixed into the other channels. A great example of this effect on a 5.1 setup is Master And Commander, where there are scenes that you'd swear have footsteps coming from above you on the deck of the ship.

DPL-IIz steers out-of-phase audio from the side surrounds subtly to the height channels, while also comparing directional cues from the other channels so it can steer overhead left, overhead right, etc. This works really well for ambient noises. I've been pretty impressed by how subtle and cool the effect is.

I'm not saying anyone should run right out to get 9.1, nor am I saying stuff is mixed with it in mind... but since it works based on existing mixing standards, it seems to work fairly consistently in my experience. Every movie I've played that has rain, wind, planes flying overhead, etc. has steered just enough of that audio to the height channels to lend it a very impressive "wall of sound" feel. It's hard to describe the effect (and it's not one that most people need - I just did it because I needed a new AVR and tossed in an extra $100 for some Monitor 30s to try out DPL-IIz and DSX), but it makes it sound like your mains extend floor to ceiling. It lends just an extra bit of dimensionality to the soundstage, without screaming "hey, there are speakers up here!". It's one of those things where I wasn't sure if it was worth it until I turned them off, at which point I noticed that extra bit of the "you are there" effect went away.

Is it overkill? Yeah, perhaps... but damn, does it sound great in my room! It was so cool watching Black Hawk Down and feeling like I was standing under the blades of those helicopters as they took off. Movies with weather effects (especially Identity, Magnolia, and Tears Of The Sun) are impressive enough that you'd swear the rain was hitting the roof above you and coming at you from every side.

Ultimately, I did it for the same reason I did the Buttkicker - I was curious, tried it, and liked it so much that it had to stay. But realistically, I'm not gonna tell anyone else they should do the same. I think if you have the space behind you, you'll get more obvious benefits from rear surrounds than you ever would from height channels. But if you get one of the newer AVRs that support DPL-IIz and have a couple of spare speakers lying about, I recommend trying it to see what you think. It isn't an obvious effect and Dolby was very conservative with the levels of the height channels, but it does make the entire soundstage sound more full to me.

gsxr141

would adding speakers to the sides help? i have a 7.1 avr that i have always used as a 5.1, but i recently picked up a pair of owm3's that i want to add. i was under the impression that the extra 2 channels were for the direct left and right of the viewer.

digitalvideo

Does your 9.1 system only operate like that by having to use Dolby or DTS or would it work the same if it's LPCM? On the Disney bluray discs they use LPCM and no Dolby or DTS.

wutadumsn23

gsxr141 wrote: »

would adding speakers to the sides help? i have a 7.1 avr that i have always used as a 5.1, but i recently picked up a pair of owm3's that i want to add. i was under the impression that the extra 2 channels were for the direct left and right of the viewer.

It's not a question of whether it will work or not, it is a question of room size. If your room isn't large enough to allow a 7.1 to be an "advantage" over 5.1, it's not worht it. Also as stated above, 7.1 isn't really an advantage anyway since not much is formatted that way. If you use a 7.1 and it is formatted in 5.1 the other two channels will only be "matrixed" so they won't be getting much sound anyway, def. not enough to make those two speakers needed, IMHO.

-Jeff

comfortablycurt

gsxr141 wrote: »

would adding speakers to the sides help? i have a 7.1 avr that i have always used as a 5.1, but i recently picked up a pair of owm3's that i want to add. i was under the impression that the extra 2 channels were for the direct left and right of the viewer.

I think you've got it turned around.

The standard surround speakers in a 5.1 setup are the "side" surrounds. The two extra channels that make it a 7.1 setup are the surround back channels, which are placed behind your listening position, between the two existing surround channels.

kuntasensei

gsxr141 wrote: »

would adding speakers to the sides help? i have a 7.1 avr that i have always used as a 5.1, but i recently picked up a pair of owm3's that i want to add. i was under the impression that the extra 2 channels were for the direct left and right of the viewer.

If you have an AVR that has Audyssey DSX, you can add width channels that are placed between your mains and side surrounds. Personally, I haven't tried that configuration on mine, and I tend to stick with Dolby specs for speaker placement. But as Curt said, the surrounds in 5.1 are meant to be placed 90-100 degrees to your sides (90 if you're using dipoles, 100 if you're using direct radiators).

kuntasensei

digitalvideo wrote: »

Does your 9.1 system only operate like that by having to use Dolby or DTS or would it work the same if it's LPCM? On the Disney bluray discs they use LPCM and no Dolby or DTS.

DPL-IIz can be applied to any format, so yes, it works on LPCM tracks.

kuntasensei

wutadumsn23 wrote: »

Also as stated above, 7.1 isn't really an advantage anyway since not much is formatted that way. If you use a 7.1 and it is formatted in 5.1 the other two channels will only be "matrixed" so they won't be getting much sound anyway, def. not enough to make those two speakers needed, IMHO.

-Jeff

Again... this is NOT TRUE. 7.1 is an advantage because almost all theatrical releases today are formatted for 5.1 + EX/ES. Yes, the rear surrounds are created using matrix steering... but they are in the theater, too. Don't get hung up on 5.1 being all you need because that's all the bitstream transports; that 5.1 track was made with theatrical rear arrays in mind, and 7.1 is the best way to recreate that in the home listening space.

And if you weren't getting much sound to your rear surrounds, you weren't doing something right. The rear surrounds are just as active as the sides in the vast majority of discs that I've played, which is key to giving it a cohesive rear soundstage. But you are right... no one NEEDS those two speakers. Then again, you don't NEED any of this stuff, but it sure is fun to have.

gsxr141

Well, i feel like a total idiot. I've been running the r1's as SBL and SBR this whole time, without any actual surround speakers. I should have moved them up and wired them as SL and SR. I plan on just adding the owm's as SL and SR, and placing them in the correct position.

wutadumsn23

That will be a start, lol. Good luck.

-Jeff

kuntasensei

For proper placement and angles, check out the home theater speaker guide at http://www.dolby.com/consumer/setup/index.html

comfortablycurt

gsxr141 wrote: »

Well, i feel like a total idiot. I've been running the r1's as SBL and SBR this whole time, without any actual surround speakers. I should have moved them up and wired them as SL and SR. I plan on just adding the owm's as SL and SR, and placing them in the correct position.

I'm gonna hazard a guess, and say that your AVR has probably been running them as regular surrounds, since there was only one pair of surrounds hooked up.

You probably haven't been missing anything.