Dolby: Holy 13.1 channels, Batman!
By Eric Lin 
posted January 8th 2005 10:32AM
posted January 8th 2005 10:32AM
Dolby built a special theater in the middle
of the CES floor to showcase Dolby Digital Plus, the next generation of Dolby home theatre protocols that starts at 7.1
and currently goes as high as 13.1 channels. Of course, they use all 13.1 channels in their booth. Not only does this
one go to 13, but the audio is sampled at a much higher bit rate, for truer sound. Dolby bumped the sampling rate from
640 kbps to 6 Mbps. HD-DVD has already selected Dolby Digital Plus as its audio codec of choice. Of course that means
that once you get an HD-DVD player and the accompanying receiver, you'll need enough cable to wrap around the earth's
circumference just to wire a single room. Buy stock in Monster Cable.
seriously, 13.1 is uncessary. the 5.1 system is good enuff for me, any1 else? even a large living room begins to look cluttered when u have ~7 speakers precisely scattered around.
Hahaha... Lens flare is a classic. ;D
they keep increasing da amount of speakers, y not add another sub.
After all that work buying a 7.2 system... (2 subs deliver same channel for higher bass)
I''m crying on the inside!
because a sub is omnidirectional in terms of sound output so adding another sub will only increase your volume. What about speakers on the ceiling so u can hear planes flying over head? hehe
Aaargh! This is all so stupid! There is no need to ever have more than SIX channels: front, back, left, right, above, below. Encode like that and let your receiver do the work of mixing and splitting and level-adjusting and outputting to your two dozen speakers and four subs. That's what it's there for! Keep the audio format itself simple, and let people choose their own speaker setup, for crying out loud!
This will be interesting one way or another even if I don't if I'll buy into it anytime soon though. ITs probably more for huge home theater buffs with home theater rooms.
Just bought another set of speakers to use my receiver's 7.1 capability. Spent a whole weekend tinkering with the furniture and placement so the living room is still, well, liveable. It does improve the sound field but I can't imagine the degree of improvement 13.1 will bring is worth the hassle.
The increase in sampling rate should be pretty sweet, but I agree that no one needs 13 speakers. Crazy
Buy stock in Monster cable, but all who actually believe in the marketing hype of Monster cable are fools
Only 14 Speakers? Wait until this thing hits the stores:
http://www.iosono-sound.de/eng/index.html?development.html
They needed ~200 hundred speakers for a 100 places cinema, so maybe you need 30 or so for a small room. OK, with todays speakers your room would look like a warehouse of a speaker company.
So be sure to use some of this ones:
http://www.emt.iis.fraunhofer.de/eng/projekte_themen/index.htm
13 channels? Will we really be able to discern a difference?
It's like that classic scene in the mock-umentary "This is Spinal Tap"...
"These amps go up to 11!"
"So why not just make 10 louder?"
"But they go up to 11!"
"Dolby bumped the sampling rate from 640 kbps to 6 Mbps."
Sampling rate is measured in hertz. I was about to forgive whoever wrote the article, but then he went on to suggest I buy some Monster Cable stock. Engadget, how about you just show us the pictures and not put your foot in your mouth?
Where are the speakers positioned?
wow this exellence. 7.1 just blown me out, 13.1 meybe make me die. I thing this good, more sound separation is what i need.I hope the price soon is affordable, so poor sound maniac like me can buy it.