What kind of speakers do home theaters need?

                           What kind of speakers do home theaters need?

Many people haven't figured out what is going on with 5.1 and 7.1, and concepts such as panoramic sound and acoustics have come out again. Crucially, every time something new comes out, it means spending more money.

Therefore, many people wonder, what kind of sound effect can meet the requirements of home theater? Is it because the money is not enough, and if you don't keep up with the pace of the times, you can only "listen to it"?

Regarding this issue, it is still necessary to make a rough analysis of the principle of home theater audio.

For movies, sound is essentially a tool for sound reinforcement, and its purpose is to make movies look more exciting. As for some people treating it as a "fever" plaything or a material product that demonstrates identity and status, that's another matter. This article is only for watching movies.

When watching a movie, "seeing" is the main thing, and "listening" is auxiliary. Nevertheless, the auditory experience of modern movies is also very important, so there will be a dedicated sound system.

The sound of watching a movie is like the "green leaves" in "Safflower needs green leaves". It is also like the "supporting role" in "Protagonist and Supporting Role". The supporting role can neither steal the show nor perform too badly, otherwise it will ruin the whole good show.

As a "tool" or "supporting role", what are the basic requirements for movie audio?

The first is to replay the sound, the second is to position the sound, and the third is to restore reality.

Replaying sound refers to decoding and sound reinforcement, which is to reproduce the sound in the film source through a decoder, power amplifier and speakers. Modern movies use multi-channel recording, and the source of the film has been specially encoded, using the encoding technology of Dolby and DTS in the United States.

The role of the decoder is to decode the codes of these two companies during playback and restore them to multi-channel audio tracks, which is the key to surround sound effects. Without a decoder, there will be no sound, or only two-channel mixed sound. The decoder itself is not expensive, and most of them are built into the power amplifier, which is called a combined power amplifier. The cheapest decoding power amplifier can be bought for more than a thousand yuan.

The speaker section includes main channel speakers, surround speakers, and subwoofers (subwoofers). Since the home theater is produced by multiple speakers, the home theater speakers do not need to be as demanding as HIFI.

For example, the problem of positioning, if the speaker of the HIFI speaker is not good enough, it will be difficult to form an accurate positioning between the two speakers. The home theater has speakers in five directions, especially the role of the center channel. As long as the decoded sound is correct, the basic sound field positioning can be formed.

The intermediate frequency part is the easiest to implement, 4-inch speakers and 5-inch speakers are enough. For the high-frequency part, the material cost of an ordinary silk film tweeter is only a dozen yuan, and the subwoofer speaker can meet the sound reinforcement requirements in a home environment with an 8-inch or even 6-inch speaker of tens of yuan.

As far as the home application environment is concerned, the requirements for these speakers do not need to be very high. Modern speaker and speaker technology is easy to implement, as long as they can fully express high, medium and low frequencies.

What is more expensive is the box body, especially the craftsmanship or materials spent on the appearance. The larger the box body, the more exquisite the appearance technology and the more expensive the price. Appearance is not particularly directly related to sound effects, but it can give people the illusion of "looking good".

Therefore, popular home theater speakers often use small boxes, and the exterior decoration is made of imitation wood grain PVC materials, or even plastic boxes, so that the cost is lower.

Since multi-channel uses multi-point sounding, the space volume of the room can be used, which is equivalent to a super-large speaker in the room. With the function of the subwoofer, the fist-sized speaker can reproduce various sounds in various movies. can show. This system composed of small speakers is generally called "satellite theater audio".

In the audio market, major world-class brand manufacturers have this kind of satellite speaker products. The most representative one is naturally the American Doctor, and others such as JBL, Harman Kardon, Denon, Onkyo, etc. have such products. The product.

Satellite theater is the most affordable audio system in home theater. It may not be worth mentioning in the eyes of "audiophiles", but it can meet the requirements for watching movies at home. In addition to the fact that the satellite box just mentioned has no problem in restoring the sound frequency range, the more important topic is the following topic: the sense of orientation.

The sense of orientation is the most attractive part of movie sound effects. Why do some people keep tossing the number of surround speakers, from 5.1 to 7.1, panoramic sound, etc. The purpose is to pursue a better sense of orientation.

The most basic direction of movie sound effects is "front, back, left, right and center of the screen".

Speakers are placed in front of and behind the audience according to certain rules, and different sounds are transmitted to these speakers through the power amplifier decoder to create a good sense of orientation, and various scenes in the movie shots can basically be expressed. The main function of the center speaker is the vocal dialogue, and it is also very helpful for connecting the front, rear, left, and right sound fields.

Since the focus of the audience is in the center of the screen, most of the vocal dialogue is also in the center of the screen, so a special speaker is needed to be in charge of the vocals, and try to make the speaking voice consistent with the actor's mouth shape. This is the center speaker. If there is no center speaker dedicated to the human voice, then the audience is seated sideways, and the voice of the speaker may come from the left or right speaker. The position of the voice does not match the shape of the mouth, and the movie looks weird.

Generally speaking, as long as there are speakers in the front, rear, left, right, and middle directions, and the sound is separated by the decoder, a good sense of direction can be created. The sound has a sense of direction, and the picture in the movie lens will become three-dimensional and rich because of the sound, such as airplanes flying by, bullets sliding by, background music clouds lingering in the room, and so on.

It is not enough to have a sense of direction, but also a sense of reality. For example, fists must be powerful, airplanes must roar when they fly by, explosion scenes must have momentum, background music must have a climax, details of various subtle sounds, and so on. Only after these are created, the picture in the movie lens will appear more real.

It is very difficult to make these sound effects very realistic, and it is a bottomless pit. What "audiophiles" are obsessed with is how to achieve this effect to the extreme.

But as a movie appreciation, it is not difficult to achieve the real effect required by the movie plot. As long as the frequency bands of the high, middle and low frequencies can be expressed, it is basically qualified. For modern power amplifier and speaker technology, it is not difficult to do. To, does not need too high cost.

More importantly, the subwoofer can also play a key role, which can solve the problem of true restoration of part of the sound.

The subwoofer sound track of modern movies is an independent channel. Even if the speaker diameter of the main speaker is large enough, if there is no subwoofer, the performance of low-frequency energy, dynamics, and sense of speed is not enough.

The home theater subwoofer has two functions, one is to strengthen the low-frequency energy, and the other is to supplement the insufficient low-frequency of other main speakers.

Some refer to high-end applications or "fever" gameplay. Many systems use not only one subwoofer, but also two, four or even more subwoofers. Its purpose is to create an ultra-shocking low-frequency effect, wishing that the sound of shells can overturn people like a real air wave. For ordinary movie lovers, and the budget is not high, don't worry about it.