Dolby demos 14-channel audio at CES

User Comments: 11

1. January 9, 2006 3:36 PM
   exscind said:
   14-channel sound? Does that mean if I play a game like Call of Duty 2 it'll sound like I'm actually in the war? It is unfortunate no sound card in the market right now can utilze this system fully, but this will take sound quality to the next level for certain. It would be interesting to see where the "official" placement for these speakers should be. This may discriminate computer users in a small room because of the lack of space to place these speakers as well the distance between the user and the speakers. Sound from speakers usually need a good 1/2 meter to sound "okay," or it will have that fuzzy/static noise, at least through my experience in experimenting in physics labs.
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2. January 9, 2006 3:43 PM
   Cartz said:
   I have to wonder, when does it become too much? 13 speakers to surround one person, is it really neccessary? I seriously think that the current 7.1 solutions, when they've matured suffeciently, will be sufficient for any home theatre.Has anyone thought about the horrific mess of wires that would result from having this setup? What about proper spacing and balancing of the speakers? If this is truly to be used for gaming, I guess those X-Fi cards from Creative with their dedicated audio RAM and fast audio processors will be neccessary after all. The processing overheard for 12 point surround while playing a game would be horrific.All in all, seems like overkill to me... That said, when is it available??
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3. January 9, 2006 3:55 PM
   sngx1275 said:
   For the placement, I was thinking of having it expand into 3 dimentions rather than just the 2 its in now. Like add some sounds comming from above your head, and also down by your feet.
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4. January 9, 2006 4:20 PM
   DragonMaster said:
   13.1 speakers, and still in 2-D...We will need 3 brackets on the back of the computer just for the sound card...Just wondering, why don't they make the cases with bigger bracket holes? graphic cards need them, sound cards, etc.There are already a lot of 3-D systems on the market. There are only a few people using them tho. And, guess what, about every of them are not really working. Do you really feel that you're in an other place with 5.1? With 7.1? Not me, and a lot of other people also. There is Ambisonic which seems great and the signal is recorded on only 4 channels : W, X, Y and Z. You surely know what are the X, Y and Z axis, and W is the sound pressure. What happens is that you tell where your speakers are located and it picks up the appropriate signal for your speakers by substracting, adding, etc. the 4 channels properly. This format exists since the '70s but appeared after "quad" which was a disaster so people didn't want to try an other format again. Also, for music, the recording studio had to change the whole mixing equipment, which is an other reason why it wouldn't catch up.
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5. January 9, 2006 5:05 PM
   asphix said:
   I read about this on bit-tech.net Here is the link for those of you interested in some more info on it.[url]http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/01/08/dolby_viiv_c
   s/[/url]14 channel audio sounds really great but even the creators admit that the next gen DVD formats will not be able to support it. Its more of an experimental thing if anything. Games may begin using it at some point as computers would be the easiest place to cheaply adopt the technology associated with it but as the article here said, we still need to adopt 5.1 and 7.1.DragonMaster, in response to your question: I do feel as if I am in another place with my 5.1 setup. The problem is my setup cost a lot more than a PC/media/HomeTheater in a box setup and I'm using a really expensive surround sound receiver to drive it (denon avr-3805 + Klipsch reference series speakers: RF-5 RC-7 RS-7). There is no way a 300-600 dollar solution used on your PC or got at best-buy will deliver even close to that.It's worth it if you have the $$ and desire to invest in a good system.
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6. January 9, 2006 6:50 PM
   PUTALE said:
   mmh, I am curious what good would the 14 channel do. I mean, I think even 5.1 and 7.1 is good enough that not many people can tell them apart.
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7. January 9, 2006 7:16 PM
   DragonMaster said:
   asphix, I might be a special case here. I see in 2-D, play music, hear over 20kHz and under 20Hz. Sometimes people wonder where a noise was coming from and for me it's clearly evident. I listened to a Denon/Klipsch system a week ago and it's better than every 5.1s I heard.One thing about Ambisonic is that there's no sweet spot. But, even Ambisonic isn't perfect because it's not supposed to be good with high freqs.
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8. January 10, 2006 2:04 AM
   zachig said:
   WOW!!! 14 Channels of sound!!! That's crazy!!! I wish I could own such a sound system in my home theatre. :-)
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9. January 10, 2006 12:17 PM
   mentaljedi said:
   Its great and they should keep going but they should also work on how to deliver this new echnology better.
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10. January 10, 2006 1:09 PM
    luismigilbert said:
    can you imagine playing call of duty II in your mother in law´s room with this techonology on and your speaker set on max volume?? superb!!!
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11. January 10, 2006 7:06 PM
    xerowingsx5k said:
    Yeah, we really need more support for multi-channel sound systems rather than having them in which only a 14 channel sound demo will be able to demonstrate.
    Reply

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