ahhhhh, so thats what the z-560 sub REALLY sounds like

lol, i decided to move my room around a little bit today for various reasons. for the most part i was just kinda bored with it, lol. i had my computer desk across a corner in my room with the sub kinda underneath in the corner. but the sub sounded way to overexaggerated on some songs with really high freqs and such. so i moved my desk over some and moved some other stuff and without the desk over the sub, it sounds so much better! my desk is a nice desk but it has that really wierd wood and it has some hollow parts in the desk where i could tell it was helping making the sub sound wierd(if anyone understood that, :D ). also, my rear and front speakers now align up alot better so i can hear surround sound a wee better without moving my body and turning my monitor. man, with the sub sounding better and having moved my sats, the matrix sounded awsome! holy cow did it sound awsome!!!! the lobby scene was killer and after when they tossed the bomb down the elevator and it blows up....man talk about rumbling!

anyways, exactly what does the center channel do in a 5.1 system? movies sound terrific on my system right now. i dont notice the diff between my friends 5.1 home theater when watching saving private ryan and my 4.1 system.......

I think the middle channel on a 5.1 setup is used for voices and speech in DVD movies, no games (to my knowledge) specifically use the middle channel...

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Originally posted by Trav2003
I think the middle channel on a 5.1 setup is used for voices and speech in DVD movies, no games (to my knowledge) specifically use the middle channel...

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well yes but for what? 4.1 systems seem to work fine for voices and such.....what role does it play in "surround sound"?

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Originally posted by Squirrel Meat


well yes but for what? 4.1 systems seem to work fine for voices and such.....what role does it play in "surround sound"?

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4.1 simply creates a phantom center channel to substitute for lack of the fifth speaker. The fifth channel is mainly used for the realism of the dialogue coming straight at you from the characters on-screen, making it seem more realistic than say if the dialogue was mixed in all four channels surrounding you. Basically the 5.1 audio stream is downmixed into 4.1 so that you can still enjoy the sound as it was meant to be heard.

You might not notice much difference if you are using a 4.1 on your comp because the speakers are so close together anyways. That is unless you have them spread out a good distance and don't sit two or three feet from your monitor when watching DVD's.

It's mainly for *larger* home theater setups located in semi-spacious locations. If you had a fairly big living room with your front speakers a good distance apart, you'd really be able to notice the advantages of having a fifth channel for the dialogue.

Anyways, more speakers = more wattage! ;)

Usually just speech and voices!

The center channel is used to direct the sound to make it look like it is coming from the people on the screen. Believe it or not the center channel on a home theatre system probably takes the most beating of all other speakers. Without it there voices are sent to the mains causing the voices to be a left and right sound instead of a center how it should.

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Originally posted by packer
Usually just speech and voices!

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any direct frontal sound will come from the center channel except what is directed to the sub.

Squirrel...

Where are your sats now? Still pretty close right? If you have them like the typical computer setup on the desk, the 560s do a decent imitation of a center channel (i.e. dialogue sounds like its coming from directly in front of you). Move them too far apart, and the center channel faking dissipates. Its supposed to be the first way, so if you have them on either side of your room, you may wish to consider moving them back the desk.

As for the sub, i keep mine about 5-6 feet in front of me because under the desk simply produced too much bass exaggeration as you noticed. I have to up the bass on the pod sometimes, but so far i havent distorted the sub even at higher volumes.

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Originally posted by packer
Usually just speech and voices!

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Well, your fronts pick up a good deal of that as well. Your center should pick up more, though. :)

Your "back" speakers should just get the higher pitched effects, if I'm thinking properly.

I've been thinking about what dolby surround sound actually does to procure it's effect, and it's just a lot of positioning, accompanied by an articulately placed crossover. :)

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Originally posted by CrawlingEye


Well, your fronts pick up a good deal of that as well. Your center should pick up more, though. :)

Your "back" speakers should just get the higher pitched effects, if I'm thinking properly.

I've been thinking about what dolby surround sound actually does to procure it's effect, and it's just a lot of positioning, accompanied by an articulately placed crossover. :)

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I think you are talking about Pro Logic I, because if i remember correctly, Dolby Digital and DTS are supposed to be 5 full bandwidth channels, at least theoretically. Whereas DPLI, the rears were limited range, monophonic. I could be wrong though.

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Originally posted by blppt


I think you are talking about Pro Logic I, because if i remember correctly, Dolby Digital and DTS are supposed to be 5 full bandwidth channels, at least theoretically. Whereas DPLI, the rears were limited range, monophonic. I could be wrong though.

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Hrmm... When I had mine setup as a 5.1 system, with Dolby on, that's what happened to me. I'd get higher frequencies from my rears, and a lot of my main sound from my center and fronts. Largely my center, but a good deal from my fronts. :)

You could be right though, I haven't had a 5.1 system for a while. I blew the two crappy fronts I had.

The only difference from the prologic to dolby digital is that the rear channel is split into two separate channels. With prologic the rears shared one single channel between them. With DD the rears each run on there own channel. The rears receive all rear positioned noise except what is sent to the subwoofer NOT just highs.

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Originally posted by CrawlingEye
You could be right though, I haven't had a 5.1 system for a while. I blew the two crappy fronts I had.

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No, you could be right....i just assumed they are full bandwidth (except for the .1 cutoff, obviously) because usually in movie soundtracks (like Crimson Tide) mirror the music from the front in the rear channels. I guess it COULD be the LFE mix in WinDVD or Power DVD XP (mixes the LFE channel in with the mains, because obviously the 560s and a lot of 4.1 systems are actually 4.0 with a LFE crossover). Will have to test it out on my home system one of these days.

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Originally posted by blppt


No, you could be right....i just assumed they are full bandwidth (except for the .1 cutoff, obviously) because usually in movie soundtracks (like Crimson Tide) mirror the music from the front in the rear channels. I guess it COULD be the LFE mix in WinDVD or Power DVD XP (mixes the LFE channel in with the mains, because obviously the 560s and a lot of 4.1 systems are actually 4.0 with a LFE crossover). Will have to test it out on my home system one of these days.

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Definitely, tell me the results, too. I'm interested to hear what you find. :)

I need to get two more speakers again, so I can run full 5.1. :)