From: GP <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> At 08:19 PM 1/23/2002, Nanako wrote: >4.1, 5.1, 6.1, 7.1 itu efeknya gede tidak sih ? rasanya kalo beda 1 >speaker doank seperti 4.1 ke 5.1 tidak terasa banget deh. cmiiw
Gue sendiri kadang bingung... pilih yang mana .... masalah terasa atau enggak itu sih tergantung kuping, ruangan dan peralatan yang dipake. Silahkan dibaca ini. Terus terang gue baca ini berkali-kali, tetep aja entar beberapa bulan bingung lagi he he he he .... Performance: The reason to buy this system is of course to play content featuring Dolby Pro Logic/Surround, Dolby Digital or DTS. The Dolby Digital (AC3) format and DTS is mostly found in movies, while several games, especially ports from consoles, use Dolby Surround. So what's the difference between these formats then? Here's a quick run down taken from Dolby's and DTS site respectively: Dolby Surround includes three channels. Two for the front with a left and a right speaker and one channel for the two rear speakers used for surround sound, which also has a limited frequency response of 100Hz to 7000 Hz. Dolby Pro Logic is an enhancement to Dolby Surround and uses a four-channel mix of left, center, right and surround channels, which has the same limited frequency response as Dolby Surround. These channels are used for left, center and right speakers up front with one channel used for rear speakers. Dolby Digital, also called AC-3, provides six separate channels of crystal clear digital surround sound. The six discrete channels are used in left, center and right speakers up front along with separate channels for two rear speakers and the LFE (low frequency effects) channel often connected to the subwoofer. All the satellites covers the entire audible range (20 Hz 20,000 Hz) but many decoders have a small mode for all or some (usually surround and center) where they filter away the low frequencies and send them to the subwoofer. The LFE track (the ".1") makes it possible to reproduce low bass effects with stunning impact (twice as loud as the other channels). Dolby Digital uses lossy AC-3 coding technology. AC-3 is the audio code decoder in the Dolby Digital sound system which eliminates the data people cannot hear while trying to maintain all the data that people can listen to from the original PCM with a sample rate of 48 kHz at up to 24 bits. The bitrate is 64 kbps to 448 kbps, with 384 being the normal rate for 5.1 channels and 192 being the normal rate for stereo (with or without surround encoding). (Most Dolby Digital decoders support up to 640 kbps.) The channel combinations are (front/surround): 1/0, 1+1/0 (dual mono), 2/0, 3/0, 2/1, 3/1, 2/2, and 3/2. The LFE channel is optional with all 8 combinations. For more details check out Dolby's official Dolby Digital FAQ. DTS (Digital Theater Systems) Digital Surround is an optional multi-channel (5.1) digital audio format, using lossy compression from PCM at 48 kHz at up to 20 bits. This compression is done in order to encrypt six channels of 20-bit digital audio information in the space previously allotted for only two channels of 16-bit linear PCM. Then during playback, the DTS decoder reconstructs the original six channels of 20-bit digital audio. Each of these six channels is audibly superior to the 16-bit linear PCM audio found on conventional compact discs. The data rate is from 64 kbps to 1536 kbps. Channel combinations are (front/surround): 1/0, 2/0, 3/0, 2/1, 2/2, 3/2. The LFE channel is optional with all 6 combinations. The DVD standard includes an audio stream format reserved for DTS, but many old players ignore it. For more details see the official DTS FAQ The Dolby Pro Logic mode while useful for some games as mentioned above is much more vital for movies since there are a large number of Dolby Pro Logic VHS movies on the market and also few TV shows broadcast in this manner. Dolby Surround offers a significant step above stereo thanks to the surround channels that immerse you more into the movie than stereo ever can. When this system, just like every other DD 5.1/DTS system, really shines is when you listen to DVD movies with a Dolby Digital 5.1 (also called AC-3) or DTS soundtrack. Exactly how significant the difference is compared to Dolby Prologic or just plain stereo depends a lot on the movie. In some movies the rear channels are mostly used just for some ambient sound effects and the difference is then not that significant but still quite a nice improvement compared to stereo. In Movies such as the Fifth Element which make better, but still not excellent use of the Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, the improvement of Dolby Digital 5.1 is quite significant, at least as significant as the step from stereo to Dolby Prologic. There is no question movies like the Fifth Element and many other DD 5.1 movies offer a good enough 5.1 experience that almost everyone will consider every cent they spent on buying a DD 5.1 speaker system as being very well spent. However, it's not until you have played movies that have taken full advantage of Dolby Digital's capabilities that you will realize how much a realistic sound surround experience contributes to making us think that we are in the middle of the action. Two perfect examples of this are Saving Private Ryan and The Matrix. Both offer a much more immersive experience with a Dolby Digital 4.1/5.1 system than a Dolby Prologic system can ever achieve. A couple of excellent examples where you don't need bullets whistling by your ears to get a significant benefit of a DD 5.1 track are The Ghost and The Darkness and a Bug's Life. To be honest, I didn't even find The Ghost and the Darkness to be a good movie until I watched it with a Dolby Digital system! One important thing to note is that while Dolby certifies all DD 5.1 decoders, and many use the same chip, the decoder can still vary a lot. The DigiTheatre DTS decoder is one of the better ones to my ears but some may prefer a system that has less directional rear speakers. This may sound strange for some, especially coming from the perspective of 3D audio in games, but many argue that you should use dipole speakers or other very non directional speakers so that you can't pin point the effect. The reason they think it's better with non directional speakers is that (they claim) most sound effects located to the rear speakers are intended as surround effects and are hampered when you can localize them. In my opinion this is only true for movies with a Dolby Surround track or with relatively unimpressive use of stereo surround channels and certainly not true for action movies like Matrix or Saving Private Ryan, something the backers of non directional surround speakers agree with. I also think movies like a Bug's Life show that directional rear speakers is a significant advantage even without bullets whizzing by. While on the subject of directional or non directional surround speakers it's worth pointing out that in the case of DTS or DD 5.1 music even the so called experts recommend directional surround speakers. They also recommend that they should be positioned behind angled slightly towards your ears like a proper gaming configuration. The DTT2500, the original DigiTheatre, MidiLands S47100 and S4 8200 all use directional surround speakers while the ADA880 surround speakers are more non directional even though they are not as non directional as dipole speakers. As mentioned in my ADA880 review I found the beach scene in Saving Private Ryan and similar scenes (e.g. the lobby at the end of Matrix) to be clearly but not significantly behind the DigiTheatre system. This also holds true compared to the DigiTheatre DTS. Comparing the DigiTheatre DTS decoder with the DigiTheatre decoder (the same one MidiLand sells under the ADS-2000 name) using the DigiTheatre decoder with the Sirocco Crossfire my impression is that they are very similar. As Mark noted in his ADS-2000 review he also found it similar to the one included with the DTT2500. Thanks to the better speaker quality the DigiTheatre DTS of course offers a much better surround experience than the DigiTheatre or DTT2500 even though the decoding quality is similar. I also compared the DigiTheatre DTS with the PowerDVD software DVD player's down-mixing to 4 speakers using the Sirocco Crossfire and while I'm impressed with the 4-speaker option in PowerDVD, the DigiTheatre DTS decoder, like every other hardware decoder I heard to date, offers a significant benefit. The difference I refer to is both the transition/positioning between the speakers which is much more effective when using the DigiTheatre DTS built in decoder (or any other hardware decoder I've heard) and the sound quality which is considerably cleaner despite the better amplifier in the Sirocco Crossfire. You can still use a software DVD player and take full advantage of the DigiTheatre DTS if your soundcard has a SPDIF output that supports AC-3 pass-thru. You also need to use a software DVD player that supports the SPDIF out for your soundcard. Most, but not all, new software DVD players support the Vortex2 and Live and several other sound cards offer custom versions of DVD players that support their cards (eg. Fortissimo). To offer an excellent surround experience it's also important to have speakers that are well matched. If they are poorly matched you will notice significant discrepancies in the sound when some sound is moving from one speaker to the next, for example a car passing by. If cost and size are no issue few would disagree that using the same drivers for all speakers would be the best choice. However cost is almost always an issue and size is often a concern as well. The two most common changes from the ideal set-up is using lower quality rear speakers and/or using a different center speaker. VideoLogic as mentioned did just the latter. VideoLogic is far from alone thinking it's ok to skew the sound of the center channel to its premier purpose, reproducing vocals and, going with a 4" driver is a good step in that direction. My impression is that the 4" driver does do a better job with vocals than what the other satellites would have done but the trade off is, as mentioned earlier, that it's not perfectly matched with the other satellites. It's still close enough that in most cases it's a non issue. For example an explosion in the center of the scene that is reproduced mostly by the center channel but where all other channels produce some of it sounds perfectly fine. It's only when the most or one of the most important sound effects (e.g. a car) in the scene relatively quickly passes by in front of me that I noticed a change of the sound effect as it's transitioned between the speakers. The further apart you have the left and right front speakers the more likely you are to notice it. If it will be something that bugs you are very discriminating and it's worth noting that none of the about 10 reviews I have read of the DigiTheatre DTS system has even mentioned it. This is a good indication not many will be bugged by it but I've received one complaint about it from someone that bought the system. He still thinks it's a very good system overall though. Personally I consider it an issue but a minor one. DTS vs Dolby Digital In the fight between DTS and Dolby in the home theater market there is no question Dolby does and will continue to dominate when it comes to number of DVD titles that uses a DD 5.1 soundtrack. As far as I know there are only a couple of concert DVD movies that support DTS that are not available in a DD 5.1 edition. The only area DTS has an advantage over Dolby when it comes to support is the number of DTS CDs. If you have no interest in DTS-CDs the only reason to buy a decoder/DD 5.1 system that supports DTS is if the DTS edition of DVD movies are better than the DD 5.1 one. So are they? Let's start with a short overview of what DTS Digital Surround and Dolby Digital really do. Both DTS Digital Surround and Dolby Digital (AC-3) use lossy compression of the original multichannel PCM soundtrack removing info the human ear is less sensitive to, that is low and high frequencies while midrange remains rather unaffected. Dolby Digital is the more efficient or aggressive compression algorithm of the two since it removes up to 90% or about 3 times as much as DTS Digital Surround. Dolby claims its algorithms are simple more efficient than DTS and that there is no audible quality loss compared to the original PCM sound track. DTS of course disagree and claim they offer superior quality. As far as I know there has been no scientific proof that DTS Digital Surround does or doesn't offer better quality than Dolby Digital. One thing worth noting when comparing the DTS edition of a movie with the Dolby Digital edition is that Dolby Digital's "dialog normalization" feature can lower the volume by up to 8 dB. The Dialog normalization ensures that the average centre channel volume is always between -25 and -31dBFS (decibels below digital full-scale), regardless of source. This means that if dialogue is recorded at a higher volume, the decoder automatically attenuates the volume of all channels to the level at which the centre channel outputs dialogue at the set "dialnorm" level (usually -31dBFS for Dolby Digital on DVD). Movies center channel ranges from -23dBFS to -31dBFS which means the volume can be up to 8 dB lower for the Dolby Digital than the DTS edition of the movie since DTS lacks "Dialog normalization". To test if there is a benefit to buying the DTS edition of a DVD I tried the Dolby Digital and DTS edition of Saving Private Ryan, Waterworld, Antz and the Bach edition of Naxos Musical Journey. I expected that if I would notice any difference it would be DTS's (at least on paper) better handling of high-end frequencies and in case of Naxos Musical Journey I found the DTS track, to me, offered a noticeably, but not significantly, better sound quality. In the other movies I found the sound quality in most cases to be only slightly better and in many cases no audible differences at all. What came as a complete surprise to me was the mixing of the soundtracks was clearly and in some scenes even significantly better. This is especially true for Saving Private Ryan. With better mixing I refer to the fact that the transition of bullets and rockets passing by, positioning of explosions, etc. was often clearly better done in the DTS version. A good guess is that DTS knows that people will scrutinize every DVD movie with DTS Digital Surround track and compare it to the Dolby Digital edition so they go to great lengths to make sure people will be more impressed by the DTS Digital Surround version. After all, the success for DTS in the DVD market will be determined if they manage to establish the DTS edition as a deluxe edition. For more about the DTS vs Dolby Digital check out this article (it's mostly theory). When it comes to basic sound quality, just like for games it varies quite a bit between different movies. In DVD movies you will find explosions, music, ambient sound effects and dialog. The quality improvement when it comes to expositions, ambient sound effects and music tracks are a bit similar to what I said for games but with the important difference that DVD movies offer superior sound quality compared to games. This also makes the difference the DigiTheatre DTS offers a much more significant improvement than it offers for games compared to the other DD 5.1 systems we reviewed. The only aspect that can be more important for games is the ability to exaggerate the bass. For movies the explosions are usually powerful enough to please most listeners without any extra boost. The explosions are also much deeper (lower bass frequencies) and the significantly better dynamic range increases the importance of having a powerful subwoofer that can handle low frequencies well. In case of dialog you may not expect much difference, but the voices are clearer and sound much more like they are in your room than with less expensive speakers. It's certainly not as significant an improvement as music or even explosions but it's still on the level as the improvements for ambient sound effects. Just like as when it comes to games and music I think it's not only significantly better than the other less expensive system we reviewed but also clearly better than any other $600 system I've heard. It even beats most sub $1000 DD 5.1 I've listened to. Having said that it's worth pointing out that if you are a fan of non-directional surround speakers you should pick another system. When it comes to loudness there's no problem to fill a normal sized or even a large living room with loud and high quality sound when you play a DVD movie with this system. Using the decibel meter and sitting close (3 feet) it went as high as 107dB during one scene and it actually remained at that level when moving 9 feet away from the front and subwoofer (rear still just 3 feet away). Summary: First what the system is not. That is, if you want to connect your DD 5.1 system to your 4 or 5.1 soundcard for some 4 or 6 channel gaming action then the DigiTheatre DTS isn't what your looking for. On the other hand, The DigiTheatre DTS is great for music, in fact its almost as good as the Sirocco Crossfire in that regard. When it comes to the systems primary purpose, DVD movies, its not perfect. As I noted it uses a slightly lower quality, not perfectly matched drivers for the center speaker and the amplifier quality is not up to the same standards of the excellent Sirocco Crossfire. However, the amp still offers very good quality with lots of clean power, the subwoofer is excellent, and the front left and right, front and rear satellites offer excellent quality. When you add in the flexibility of DTS decoding and the very good price of $600 (when compared to home theater systems offering similar quality) you have a system that offers enough to easily earn our 3DsoundSurge of Approval. When it comes to awarding medals the choice is not as clear as systems in VideoLogic's current Sirocco lineup, all of which are gold medal performers. However, the DigiTheatre DTS offers enough quality and value compared to spending a bit more money to earn our Gold Medal of Excellence. -- Garind P =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= "oc ur mobo not urself or anybody else" -- Compu-Mania MailingList, provided by PT Centrin Online Tbk Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED], body: unsubscribe Compu-Mania Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Info: [EMAIL PROTECTED], body: help
