So you got a new set of 5.1 speakers. Great—way to go!Your next step would proba-bly be to grab a bag of popcorn and settle down in front of your home entertainment system! Slide in that DVD and sitback. But what’s this? DVD not sounding the way it should?Gun shots fired from behind being played by the front speakers? The ensuing irritation could make you want to tear out your hair, or maybe throw out your speakers, or both!
What you need is only to prop-erly set up those sound boxes, and you’ll be surprised at the mere minutes it takes to actually get it right. We throw in a helping hand,as usual, and believe it—you will hear the difference!
Why Six Channels?
A 5.1 speaker set is, of course, a six-channel system, that is, it is capa-ble of reproducing six channels of sound, one of which is dedicated to bass (the subwoofer).
DVD audio, movies and gaming are the two areas where 5.1 speakers are in heavy demand.These are also the only two areas that fully utilise multi-channel audio, since music and movies from non-DVD sources are typi-cally stereophonic. True 5.1 soundis positional sound, “positional”relative to the seated audience:DVD soundtracks are natively 6-channel, so positional sound is inbuilt. This means that gunfire behind and to your left will sound from exactly that channel—provided you’ve placed your speak-ers correctly, that is. With up mixing—adding virtual channels to a stereo source the result is never good enough to compare with a true surround sound source.
Almost all motherboards today come with either 6-channel oreven 8-channel audio onboard.With technologies such as Intel’sHigh Definition—codenamed Azalia—a high definition, 8-chan-nel audio architecture becoming more mainstream, the need to invest in a discrete multi-channel sound card is decreasing. We will use an onboard 5.1 solution for the purpose of setting up the speakers. Those with discretesound cards can follow much the same procedure. So here’s how to get the best sound from your speaker set:
1. First, ensure that your sound drivers are installed properly and up-to-date. Not only will these seri-ously hinder audio playback, they are notorious system resourcehogs as well. Updated drivers ensure that bugs are ironed out.
2. Speaker wire plugs are generally colour-coded, and some manufacturers also mark the speakers as “front left,” “rear right,” and so on, which further simplifies the installation process.Most 5.1 speakers have the satel-lites connecting to either the subwoofer or an external box ordecoder. Terminals are either ofthe wire clamp or plug types
3. The front satellites areideally placed a minimum of five feet apart. More powerful speakers can be placed further apart,barring space constraints. The satellites should be placed so that they fire in the audiences’ direction. Similarly, the rear speakers
are placed behind the listener, andin general should form a rough box formation with the front speakers. The centre speaker,which handles most of the vocalsin a DVD movie, is ideally placeda top the monitor, directly in front of the user.
Face the speakers towards you:if not, loss in clarity will result, since mid and high frequency sounds are direction-specific. The subwoofer can be placed any wherein front of you, since low frequency sounds are not directional. Place the sub away from obstructions so it can fire properly,and try to maintain adequateventilation around it. If you havean under powered sub, place itnear a wall to boost the bass.
4. If the speakers’ connect plugs are colour-coded, attach the corresponding wires to the satel-lites. Some speakers come with wired satellites, making this step unnecessary. Move on and attach the other end of the wires to the rear of the subwoofer or decoder box, as the case may be. There should typically be six connector sat the back, with front, left and right, centre, etc. marked. It’s good practice to coil up and tie thewires if they’re too long, rather than let them hang around, as they tend to get knotted up,particularly at the point of connection with the sub/amp.
5. Now you need to connect the speakers to the sound card ormother board. Sound card/onboard outputs are usually colour-coded. Light green is forthe front two channels, black typi-cally denotes the rear speakers,while the centre and subwooferare represented by an orange-coloured connector. If there’s nocolour coding, your sound driverscan help—use the troubleshooting feature.
6. You should have “5.1” sound selected in the speaker settings,which you can access via
the control panel or the sound card drivers. All sound cards come witha setup Wizard or calibration Wizard—click on it. Here, too,select “5.1”: some software will intelligently detect the speaker connects and show 5.1. These utili-ties usually play sounds from each speaker while indicating whichs peaker is playing by highlighting them on the screen. This is to ensure that the channels are right.If the speakers are playing when they should, breathe a sigh of relief—you’re nearly through!
7. Another important tweak isthe subwoofer crossover. In yoursound card drivers, this will be shown as a slider bar. Generally, if set at a value like 120 Hz (typically,the crossover allows a range from0 to 200 Hz), it means that any sound intercepted by the decoder unit below 120 Hz will be redi-rected to the woofer unit. The typi-cal crossover frequency should be between 80 Hz and 120 Hz;anything higher than this can be handled by the mid range(squawker) drivers. Experimentand see what sounds best for you.The best sound may even vary from song to song, but the regenerally is an optimal setting.
8. Slip a DVD movie into your drive. Start her up! You now need to calibrate the volume of the speakers. A good way to start is to set the overall (or “master”)volume to between 50 and 75 percent, while playing around withthe individual speaker volumes.The woofer volume should be kep tat about 60 per cent; this is a comfortable volume that doesn’tdistort, and at the same time,doesn’t intrude on the other sounds. Usually, the centre speaker is a bit more power fulthan the other satellites, so it can be set at a slightly higher volume level than them without distor-tion. The centre speaker should, as a rule always be more powerful,because this is the channel that produces the vocals in a 5.1 movie.
9. Sit back on your settee, grab the popcorn (which you droppedin frustration earlier), and chill out!
Mail -sam.samier@gmail.com
