of a few years ago, most consumer off-the-shelf systems feature either 5 identical speakers or 4 identical speakers with a center channel modified for better placement on top of the television. For a home theater system designed primarily for watching movies, the center channel may be of dubious quality and design though. In many older (circa 2000 or so) consumer music-only surround system, the front speakers may be matched direct radiators and the rear speakers may be dipoles (see 1.10).

This is a slightly touchy subject. My original intent in building this site was to celebrate the Dynaco company formed by David Hafler, and crewed by talented folks such as Ed Laurent, Wade Burns, Joe Sparacio, Jim Elliott, Sid Lidz, Bob Tucker, Bill Phillips, Harry Klaus, Erno Borbely, John Ferranti, Doug Hercus, Richard Pley, etc. etc. I wanted to provide detailed info on the equipment they designed, supported, and serviced, right through the end of the company in 1980.

Ideally, surround speakers should be either wall-mounted or stand-mounted to either side of the couch or primary listening area, from one to six feet higher than seated listeners' ears, and slightly forward or rearwards of the listening area if you wish. Axiom's Quadpolar surrounds are especially versatile and can yield excellent performance with stand or wall-mounting to the rear as well as at side locations. (see our dedicated stands for the QS Surround speakers in the Store).

Surround speaker placement, room acoustics, and personal preference are as important as the speakers' radiating characteristic. These factors vary greatly, so Dolby Laboratories cannot recommend a particular speaker for home theater use. Bipolar, dipolar, and tripolar surround speakers use speaker drivers aimed towards the front and back of the room to achieve a diffuse soundfield like that created by the multiple surround speakers used in movie theaters.

No. You must hook the Xbox optical output to some device capable of decoding the AC-3 digital audio. There are NO EXCEPTIONS. You need either an AC-3 capable receiver or an AC-3 capable PC sound card with optical input.

This is typically caused because the home theatre receiver is not in Dolby Pro-Logic or Dolby Digital Surround mode. Different brands of home theatre receivers have different methods to put the system in this mode. It is usually controlled from the remote and often called "listen mode" or "mode". Also occasionally you’ll encounter a movie with little or no surround information on the soundtrack. The older the movie the more likely this to be the case.

That's the steering system of the Dolby Pro Logic decoder in your receiver extracting the rear channel information. Because the process is very phase dependant, the swishing sound (phase shift) can be evident during action scenes with a lot of panning. The latest Pro Logic II is less susceptible to this effect.

Thanks to the increasing power and dropping cost of signal-processing chips, sound that appears to come from around the listener is now possible with just two speakers. These audio processing systems, often referred to as "virtual surround," require that the listener be positioned in a specific "sweet spot" in front of the two speakers. As a result, they cannot substitute for multiple speakers in home theater applications.

The Executive Committee has selected the speakers for their international expertise. There will be : CEOs, Authors and Executive Coaches, Professors and International Experts. The speakers and their bios are presented in the Speakers section of this web site.

No, the HDMI outputs on the Movie Player and the Movie Player 2 carry video and PCM stereo audio only. When using HDMI for video, you can use digital coaxial, digital optical, or analog stereo outputs for audio. No. The DVD CCA License does not permit the use of RGBHV video output during DVD playback. The Kaleidescape Movie Player 2 supports both HDMI and component video (YPbPr) for high-quality video output.

Full-surround grilles represent a distinct product upgrade as they include an outer frame milled to overlay the window frame at the point where the glass meets the frame. Full surround grilles are factory assembled based on your specific divided lite pattern and must be shipped in specially built packaging to protect the product during transit. Orders calling for full-surround grilles carry a nominal packaging up-charge based on the size and quantity of grilles orders and will cost most to ship.

Dolby Digital, Dolby Pro Logic II and DTS are all supported and processed. Remember all audio is processed by the Cell and developers can use whatever audio codecs they want…so this is only the beginning.