Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: and I love all things tech, and last week I
Speaker 1: started talking about home theater basics, and I really started
Speaker 1: with televisions and projectors, right, talking about the screen because
Speaker 1: that typically is one of those things that draws our
Speaker 1: attention first. Right, We talked a bit about L E
Speaker 1: D screens, O L E D screens, projector screens, the
Speaker 1: differences between h D t V four K and eight K,
Speaker 1: what h d R or high dynamic range is, and
Speaker 1: what refresh rates mean. But there are some other things
Speaker 1: that I want to chat about before we move on
Speaker 1: to sound. That's going to be the main focus of
Speaker 1: this episode. But we've got some stuff I got to
Speaker 1: clear up first because it does get confusing out there,
Speaker 1: and I didn't cover absolutely everything. So for example, as
Speaker 1: I mentioned in the previous episode, a lot of the
Speaker 1: specs with television's really comes down to marketing. Okay, so
Speaker 1: technology is is fun stuff, and there are a lot
Speaker 1: of hard things we can talk about, like as in
Speaker 1: defined things, Right, there are certain technologies where you've got
Speaker 1: a certain set of specifications, and anything that meets those
Speaker 1: specifications counts in. Anything that doesn't meet those specifications doesn't count.
Speaker 1: But with home theater, there's a lot of marketing jargon
Speaker 1: out there and a lot of different approaches to trying
Speaker 1: to create the best experience, and it gets really muddled.
Speaker 1: Companies find all sorts of different ways to quantify elements
Speaker 1: in a television and then they slap that number on
Speaker 1: a box. And these numbers can look really impressive, right
Speaker 1: if you just see the number, or like some interesting
Speaker 1: designation that's heavily trademarked, that might seem like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is really cool, it's really advanced, it's really good. Other
Speaker 1: companies will go a step further they incorporate some proprietary
Speaker 1: technology and their televisions. That makes it even more confusing,
Speaker 1: where this is something that you will only find in
Speaker 1: TVs from this particular company, and you ask, well, what
Speaker 1: does that mean, why is it there, what benefit does
Speaker 1: it give me? And is it compatible with everything I
Speaker 1: want to watch? So one of those companies that does this,
Speaker 1: and it's by no means the only one. I don't
Speaker 1: want to just single it out, but Samsung is one
Speaker 1: of those companies. So I talked about oh LEDs O
Speaker 1: L E D S. I did not, however, talk about
Speaker 1: q LEDs, a technology that Samsung promotes, and its television's
Speaker 1: q LEDs, according to Samsung, stands for quantum dot L
Speaker 1: E D t V. So that raises an obvious question,
Speaker 1: what the heck is a quantum dot. Technically, a quantum
Speaker 1: dot is a nanoscale crystal that when UV light hits
Speaker 1: that crystal, the crystal will emit various colors, and the
Speaker 1: color that the crystal emits depends upon the crystal's size.
Speaker 1: And that probably sounds a little bit weird. It kind
Speaker 1: of sounds like Star Wars E right, like a chaiber crystal.
Speaker 1: Your chiber crystal determines the color of your lightsaber blade.
Speaker 1: Almost the same sort of concept here, except we're talking
Speaker 1: about stuff on the nanoscale that, by the way, we're
Speaker 1: talking about like nanometer that means one billionth of a meter,
Speaker 1: so tiny that the quantum rules start to take effect.
Speaker 1: And all things quantum and nanoscale are a little weird
Speaker 1: because quantum mechanics do not necessarily work the same way
Speaker 1: classic physics do, at least not the way we understand
Speaker 1: it right. There's stuff it happens at the nano scale
Speaker 1: that just does not happen at the macro scale, and
Speaker 1: it seems almost magical to us because it's not the
Speaker 1: experience we have. Maybe if you can actually see the matrix,
Speaker 1: it all makes sense, like everything fits together. But right
Speaker 1: now we still have incredibly intelligent physicists who are trying
Speaker 1: to find ways of marrying the world of quantum mechanics
Speaker 1: with our understanding of classical physics. Anyway, let's say you've
Speaker 1: got a quantum dot that's six nanometers across, and you
Speaker 1: hit that quantum dot with light that's around four fifty
Speaker 1: nanometers in wavelength. That actually puts it in the neighborhood
Speaker 1: of blue light. Blue is in that that frequency range
Speaker 1: um that crystal or that wavelength range. I should say
Speaker 1: that crystal then will emit red light. That's six nanometer
Speaker 1: wide crystal. But if you were to build a quantum
Speaker 1: dot that's five nanometers wide and you that one with
Speaker 1: that same blue light, that crystal would emit orange light,
Speaker 1: and so on. So by just changing the size of
Speaker 1: the quantum dot, or making quantum dots of different sizes,
Speaker 1: you can create different light effects even using the same
Speaker 1: light source hitting all those different quantum dots. Quantum dots
Speaker 1: have lots of other potential applications besides television screens. Uh.
Speaker 1: The dots properties also depend on tons of different factors
Speaker 1: in addition to size, such as the shape of the
Speaker 1: crystal and whether or not the crystal is hollow or
Speaker 1: if it's solid, And there's some really cool biomedical applications,
Speaker 1: and beyond that, there's talk of quantum dots taking apart
Speaker 1: in self assembling nanocrystals as a nanotechnology that can build
Speaker 1: itself under the right conditions. But that's enough for us
Speaker 1: to cover for now, because we could do an entire
Speaker 1: episode about quantum dots and nanotechnologies and totally get off track.
Speaker 1: So a Samsung q LED t V is actually a
Speaker 1: variant on the l e ED l c D Television's
Speaker 1: l c D standing for liquid crystal display. So l
Speaker 1: e ED t vs use light emitting diodes that's what
Speaker 1: LED stands for, as tiny lamps that provide the light
Speaker 1: for a television screen. So all that light is coming
Speaker 1: from these little l e ED light sources. A liquid
Speaker 1: crystal display panel acts kind of like a shutter or
Speaker 1: shade for each of those lamps, and it allows a
Speaker 1: certain amount of light through to the screen in order
Speaker 1: to achieve the proper brightness or luminosity of a scene.
Speaker 1: And this also means that the little lamps are actually
Speaker 1: always on in the background, and some l e D
Speaker 1: screens aren't really able to show really dark colors effectively,
Speaker 1: meaning you kind of get lousy contrast ratio compared to
Speaker 1: oh LAD screens. Oh lads or organic light emitting diodes
Speaker 1: are different, and that each pixel in an old LAD
Speaker 1: screen emits its own light, and thus it can turn
Speaker 1: off entirely and achieve a true black on screen instead
Speaker 1: of this kind of dark gray, because there's actually a
Speaker 1: light shining through a liquid crystal, and some of that
Speaker 1: light is bleeding through the liquid crystal to get to
Speaker 1: the screen. So with oh leads you don't have a backlight.
Speaker 1: The old leads are both light and pixel and oh
Speaker 1: LAD screens are emissive, whereas l e D screens are transmissive,
Speaker 1: and a Q LEAD screen is also transmissive. It's a
Speaker 1: type of l E D, so Samsung's Q l e
Speaker 1: D screen includes a film of quantum dots in addition
Speaker 1: to the L E D and l c D elements,
Speaker 1: So the light passes through the film of the quantum
Speaker 1: dots in addition to everything else, I imagine that probably
Speaker 1: means that the lights behind the screen need to be
Speaker 1: even brighter in order to you know, push the right
Speaker 1: amount of light through all those it's including the extra
Speaker 1: layer of the quantum dot film. But the quantum dots
Speaker 1: are supposed to provide much more vibrant and realistic color representation,
Speaker 1: so the colors you get on screen are supposed to
Speaker 1: be more accurate and jump off the screen more effectively. Now,
Speaker 1: q laed screens typically can produce a much brighter picture
Speaker 1: than oh LAD screens do. So while oh lads are
Speaker 1: great for contrast and they work really well in dim rooms,
Speaker 1: q LED screens are more luminous and they can work
Speaker 1: better in brighter rooms. So even if you have like
Speaker 1: a lot of ambient light in your home theater space,
Speaker 1: or you're not even building a home theater you just want,
Speaker 1: you know, a good TV and you have to have
Speaker 1: a lot of windows or whatever, or a lot of
Speaker 1: other light in the space, these screens can be bright
Speaker 1: enough where they can overcome that that ambient light that's
Speaker 1: in your area. And they also work pretty well with
Speaker 1: HDR content, that high dynamic range where you're trying to
Speaker 1: reproduce colors in a really vibrant way. Now that is
Speaker 1: not to say that que lads are better than oh LEDs,
Speaker 1: but rather if you're in a bright setting, it can
Speaker 1: seem that way. This, by the way, is one of
Speaker 1: the reasons that's so dang hard to shop for television's
Speaker 1: because typically you go to a store that's lit with
Speaker 1: these bright, fluorescent, you know, lights, and it can mean
Speaker 1: that a television that technically will deliver a superior performance
Speaker 1: under normal viewing circumstances might not look the best simply
Speaker 1: because you're in a very bright environment, not in a
Speaker 1: home theater setting. That's why a lot of these places
Speaker 1: will have like a home theater room set up where
Speaker 1: at least a certain number of televisions can be shown
Speaker 1: without being in that bright environment. Then again, maybe if
Speaker 1: your home is brightly lit, then the experience you get
Speaker 1: in the store is exactly what you need, because you
Speaker 1: want to make sure that the screen you get is
Speaker 1: one that you know you can see everything on. Something
Speaker 1: else I didn't really cover in the last episode is
Speaker 1: viewing angle, but that is actually important to Again, this
Speaker 1: gets around the technology part. It's more about how you
Speaker 1: position the technology. Most shopping guides for television's assume that
Speaker 1: you will normally view the television pretty much dead on,
Speaker 1: sitting you know, directly across from it, so like at
Speaker 1: a zero degree angle straight line between you and the TV,
Speaker 1: and the center of the television would be positioned more
Speaker 1: or less at your eye level. Once you start moving
Speaker 1: that around, like changing the viewing angle, you start to
Speaker 1: encounter some issues, Like you would get the ideal experience
Speaker 1: under those circumstances, and once you deviate from those circumstances,
Speaker 1: you might encounter problems. For example, TVs that have l
Speaker 1: c D screens can have areas that appear brighter or
Speaker 1: darker from other viewing angles. So if you're sitting to
Speaker 1: the side or you wouldn't necessarily see the picture exactly
Speaker 1: as it should be. Or let's say your television is
Speaker 1: mounted closer to the ceiling, it might not be ideal
Speaker 1: either because your viewing angle is not the way that
Speaker 1: you know was thought of as being ideal. Oh, LED
Speaker 1: screens typically have a much more consistent viewing experience across
Speaker 1: multiple angles, So if you do want to mount a
Speaker 1: television close to your ceiling, then an old screen might
Speaker 1: be the way to go because it won't be as
Speaker 1: affected by that that extreme viewing angle as an l
Speaker 1: c D television would. One other thing I do need
Speaker 1: to mention about oh LED screens. This was actually brought
Speaker 1: up by someone on Twitter, and I apologize. I tried
Speaker 1: to find your tweet this morning, but I couldn't find it.
Speaker 1: I don't know what has happened. I don't know why
Speaker 1: it's disappeared from my mentions. But someone actually pointed out
Speaker 1: in our last episode that, like plasma displays, oh LED
Speaker 1: screens can experience burning. Burning happens when a screen holds
Speaker 1: a particular image for a really long time. And I'm
Speaker 1: talking like hours and hours of hour of holding that image.
Speaker 1: So imagine like you have a video game playing and
Speaker 1: you pause the game and the system never goes into
Speaker 1: sleep mode. It just holds that image there, and then
Speaker 1: you go on vacation for two months and you come back.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm talking about. So in these cases, that
Speaker 1: image of whatever was held on the screen for so
Speaker 1: long burns into the display. Uh. In this case, it
Speaker 1: means that the particular oh LED elements have held that
Speaker 1: image so long that they kind of hold onto a
Speaker 1: ghost of that image forever. So if you try watching anything,
Speaker 1: you'll end up seeing sort of a transparent image of
Speaker 1: whatever it was that was burned on the screen. Usually
Speaker 1: what you'll get is actually image retention, not image burning,
Speaker 1: which is more like the experience of having, you know,
Speaker 1: a bright light flash in your eyes for a second,
Speaker 1: and you get that after image, that retinal after image.
Speaker 1: That can happen with oh led screens, but that's temporary.
Speaker 1: The retained image will fade and before long you wouldn't
Speaker 1: even remember that was on there. But it is possible
Speaker 1: for those kind of ghostly images to become a permanent fixture.
Speaker 1: If it's held long enough, it goes beyond being an
Speaker 1: afterimage and it becomes burning. One way this can happen
Speaker 1: is if you have a television that's set to a
Speaker 1: specific channel, and let's say that channel has a logo
Speaker 1: up on screen pretty much all the time. So you've
Speaker 1: got a television running, say a twenty four hour news
Speaker 1: station like CNN or Fox News or something. The logo
Speaker 1: in the corner can actually eventually burn into the screen.
Speaker 1: If you're just showing that all the time and the
Speaker 1: TV never goes off. Now, for most people, this isn't
Speaker 1: a problem because most people typically watch a variety of
Speaker 1: things and that prevents burning from happening. Uh if it's
Speaker 1: like a TV that's in say an office setting, and
Speaker 1: it always has CNN on, well, then you're more likely
Speaker 1: to see burning with a no LED screen under those cases.
Speaker 1: I like to think of this as, uh, those oh
Speaker 1: LAD components that hold onto the image are really just
Speaker 1: saying this is all I know how to do now,
Speaker 1: which frankly is a mood that I identify with. And
Speaker 1: technically l c D based televisions can also have burn
Speaker 1: into but it is far less common it. It requires,
Speaker 1: like like I said, ages and ages and ages of
Speaker 1: holding the same sort of image for it to happen
Speaker 1: with your typical l c D based televisions. But even
Speaker 1: with oh LAD, it's something that the average person is
Speaker 1: not likely to encounter. So while it is possible, I
Speaker 1: don't want to discourage people from, say, going to look
Speaker 1: at oh LED screens because it's not likely to happen
Speaker 1: to you. All Right, That, I think means we're finally
Speaker 1: ready to transition away from visuals and talk more about sound.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna take a quick break and when we
Speaker 1: come back, we're gonna pick up with the sound component
Speaker 1: of home theater systems, which for a lot of home
Speaker 1: theater enthusiasts, they argue that as the most important component.
Speaker 1: That you know, your screen is important, obviously, but that
Speaker 1: your sound is even more important than that. So if
Speaker 1: you were to like budget out of home theater, you
Speaker 1: would want to put more money towards your sound system
Speaker 1: than your television or your screen and projector. I don't
Speaker 1: know that I agree with that. I probably do because
Speaker 1: I do really like sound. I mean, I'm in podcasting
Speaker 1: after all. But um yeah, we're gonna get into that
Speaker 1: after this quick break. So we'll be right back now
Speaker 1: to talk about sound. We're gonna need to have a
Speaker 1: quick refresher on what sound actually is because it is
Speaker 1: important and longtime listeners of tech stuff y'all know all
Speaker 1: this by heart by now, but we get new folks
Speaker 1: all the time. So let's talk about the physics of sound,
Speaker 1: all right. So sound, when you really break it down,
Speaker 1: is essentially vibration. It's atoms and molecules that are vibrating
Speaker 1: against each other in a way that extends outward from
Speaker 1: the point of origin, and it extends outward in all
Speaker 1: directions from the point of origin. So as long as
Speaker 1: there are enough molecules of whatever, this vibration is moving
Speaker 1: through the medium. In other words, sound can travel. That's
Speaker 1: why sound doesn't travel in space, because there's a lack
Speaker 1: of molecules that are close enough to vibrate against each other,
Speaker 1: so sound can't travel out there. We talk about the
Speaker 1: speed of sound a lot, particularly with stuff like air
Speaker 1: travel or you know, projectiles, but that phrase is deceptive
Speaker 1: because sounds speed is dependent upon the medium through which
Speaker 1: it travels, so sound does not travel at the same
Speaker 1: speed through everything. Sound will travel at a different speed
Speaker 1: through solids versus liquids, versus gases, and it gets even
Speaker 1: more complicated from there. Most of the time we can
Speaker 1: just say speed of sound to mean how fast sound
Speaker 1: travels through the air, because that's how we typically experience sound.
Speaker 1: But even this needs some qualifiers because sound will travel
Speaker 1: at different speeds through cold air then it will through
Speaker 1: hot air, and different speeds through dry air than it
Speaker 1: will through humid air, so we actually do have to
Speaker 1: get very specific. That usually means we say sound travels
Speaker 1: at three per second through dry air at twenty degrees celsius,
Speaker 1: which is sixty degrees fahrenheit. So why does that temperature matter. Well,
Speaker 1: if you remember your physics, when you heat gases up,
Speaker 1: they expand and the molecules get more energy and they
Speaker 1: move around a lot more. Colder gases are more dense,
Speaker 1: the molecules move less. In fact, if you can cool
Speaker 1: down the gas to absolute zero, the lowest temperature you
Speaker 1: can get, you stop molecular movement entirely. But typically we
Speaker 1: are not talking about temperatures that cold. Sound will travel
Speaker 1: faster through warm air than cold air, and you can
Speaker 1: think of the molecules as being a little bit more
Speaker 1: loosey goosey, and so they'll move around more easily, and
Speaker 1: thus vibration will pass through this more easily. There's less
Speaker 1: resistance anyway. Now that's super important for our home theater discussion.
Speaker 1: It's just good to have a basic handle on the
Speaker 1: physics of sound before you start talking about sound setups. Now,
Speaker 1: some things that are super important about how sound behaves
Speaker 1: is that when it moves through one medium and encounters another,
Speaker 1: things change. So, for example, let's say you're swimming underwater
Speaker 1: and someone above water is shouting your name. If you
Speaker 1: hear that at all, it's going to be pretty muffled,
Speaker 1: which is weird because you know, sound travels pretty well
Speaker 1: through liquids. I mean, whales are able to sing to
Speaker 1: each other miles apart. Right, Sound can travel enormous distances underwater.
Speaker 1: But when sound encounters a boundary between two mediums or
Speaker 1: or media, if you prefer like moving from the air
Speaker 1: to the water, then typically one of three things happens.
Speaker 1: Sound waves get absorbed, which means, you know it, they
Speaker 1: just kind of get absorbed by physical material and they
Speaker 1: no longer bounce around. Or sound waves get refracted, or
Speaker 1: sound waves get reflected, and this is super important for
Speaker 1: home theater setups. So let's just get refraction out of
Speaker 1: the way, because most of you don't need to worry
Speaker 1: about it unless you plan to set up your home
Speaker 1: theater system inside a glass cube and then watch everything
Speaker 1: from outside the cube, which you know, don't do that.
Speaker 1: Between the refraction of sound and the glare that you're
Speaker 1: gonna get on the glass, it would be a subpar experience.
Speaker 1: But with a refraction, waves traveling through one medium will
Speaker 1: change direction and speed as well as wavelength as they
Speaker 1: pass through the boundary of the one medium into another,
Speaker 1: such as from a gas to a liquid, or vice
Speaker 1: versa um. If you've ever noticed that a straw and
Speaker 1: a glass of water looks as though it's in one
Speaker 1: position above the water line and a different position below it,
Speaker 1: like it's offset, that's because light waves are refracting as
Speaker 1: they pass from the air to water. So light behaves
Speaker 1: in a very similar way. Sound does the same. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we're gonna leave that behind because refraction is not as
Speaker 1: important to us as reflection and absorption. If the density
Speaker 1: of the two mediums is extreme, Like if there's a
Speaker 1: difference in density where you're going from like gas to
Speaker 1: a hard solid, you're more likely to see reflection than
Speaker 1: you are refraction. With a reflection, a wave of traveling
Speaker 1: through one medium encounters a dense obstacle and then bounces
Speaker 1: off that obstacle. It cannot absorb into it, it cannot
Speaker 1: refract through it, so it bounces off it reflects. So
Speaker 1: in a home theater, sound traveling from speakers might encounter
Speaker 1: like a hardwood floor and thus bounce off the floor,
Speaker 1: and the angle of bounce is interesting. The law of
Speaker 1: reflection tells us that waves will bounce off an obstacle
Speaker 1: at an angle equal to the angle of approach. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, if sound is coming in at a
Speaker 1: thirty five degree angle, when it's hitting the ground, it
Speaker 1: will bounce off at a thirty five degree angle from
Speaker 1: the ground. If it's forty five degrees coming in, it
Speaker 1: will be forty five degrees coming out. If it's ninety degrees,
Speaker 1: it will be ninety degrees. Knowing this is really important
Speaker 1: because this comes into effect when we start talking about
Speaker 1: things like soundbars, which we may or may not get
Speaker 1: to in this episode. I'll find out when I get there,
Speaker 1: all right. Because of this fun fact of the law
Speaker 1: of reflection, people can create really cool effects in spaces,
Speaker 1: physical spaces. Folks figured this out a long, long long
Speaker 1: time ago, which is part of the reason why certain buildings,
Speaker 1: like certain churches and cathedrals in Europe, for example, are
Speaker 1: built in really similar styles. And part of the desired
Speaker 1: outcome was to create a structure that would reflect sound well.
Speaker 1: Because remember these things were built in the days before
Speaker 1: amplified sounds, so you didn't have microphones and speakers and stuff,
Speaker 1: and you had musical composers who would create sacred music
Speaker 1: knowing about the reflective effects, and they would create some
Speaker 1: truly remarkable pieces of music that to this day sound
Speaker 1: incredible if you happen to be inside one of those
Speaker 1: structures when a group performs it, because it was made
Speaker 1: for those spaces and those reflections end up creating effects
Speaker 1: that enhance the music. If you were to hear it
Speaker 1: outside of that building, it would sound like a totally
Speaker 1: different piece and you would lose some of that complexity.
Speaker 1: But the reason I bring it up here is that
Speaker 1: if you do have a lot of hard surfaces in
Speaker 1: your home theater room, like hardwood floors, woodwalls, maybe like
Speaker 1: a flat hard ceiling, then you're gonna get a lot
Speaker 1: of sound reflection, and that's not necessarily a good thing.
Speaker 1: If you want to create an immersive audio experience, then
Speaker 1: you want to be able to control how sound is
Speaker 1: going to reach the audience. So let's say it's you,
Speaker 1: like you're planning on being the person who primarily uses
Speaker 1: this home theater. You want to be able to control
Speaker 1: how sound gets to you, so that Let's say you're
Speaker 1: watching a really creepy horror movie and you want the
Speaker 1: sounds to be really specific and directional, so that when
Speaker 1: something happens, say off to the left to your left
Speaker 1: on screen, then you hear it on your left side.
Speaker 1: Maybe even more positional than that, maybe it sounds like
Speaker 1: it's coming up from behind your left shoulder. Well, you
Speaker 1: have to create a setup where all this can happen.
Speaker 1: And for that reason, a lot of home theater enthusiasts
Speaker 1: prefer to have carpeted floors, and they prefer to have
Speaker 1: walls that either have some form of baffling on them,
Speaker 1: like foam or fabric panels that absorb sound rather than
Speaker 1: reflect it, or they will put their home theater in
Speaker 1: a place that has like drywall, which is pretty good
Speaker 1: at absorbing sound. It doesn't reflect sound quite as badly
Speaker 1: as say a flat wood wall would. Same thing is
Speaker 1: true for the ceiling. Some homeowners when they're playing in
Speaker 1: a home theater, they'll use carpet tiles, and they'll cover
Speaker 1: the ceiling with carpet tiles to try and dampen sound
Speaker 1: and absorb it so that you're not getting reflections off
Speaker 1: the wrong speaker. If you're hearing a reflection that's coming
Speaker 1: from the right speaker in your left ear, then it's
Speaker 1: sending the wrong information to your brain right, it's telling you, oh, hey,
Speaker 1: something's happening off to the left, when really it should
Speaker 1: be happening to the right. So it's all about control.
Speaker 1: And I think it talked a bit about windows in
Speaker 1: our last episode, and not only is it important to
Speaker 1: have good curtains or shades for windows to help cut
Speaker 1: down on ambient light and reduce glare, it's also important
Speaker 1: to cover those windows so that you don't have a flat,
Speaker 1: hard surface that sound can bounce off of. Now, I
Speaker 1: know talking about sound reflection may seem like I'm way
Speaker 1: off track as far as tech goes, But the reason
Speaker 1: I wanted to cover it is I would hate for
Speaker 1: anyone to go out and make a massive investment in
Speaker 1: a home theater system. I mean, these things can get
Speaker 1: wicked expensive. I looked at one for the purposes for
Speaker 1: the purpose is a research for this episode, not to
Speaker 1: put it in my home because I just can't afford this.
Speaker 1: But I looked at one where it said like this
Speaker 1: one's not terribly expensive, and it was a ten thousand
Speaker 1: dollar system that was just for the sound system, not
Speaker 1: not even including like a television or projector or anything
Speaker 1: like that. Ten grand that's a huge amount of money.
Speaker 1: I mean unless you're like really rich, in which case, hey,
Speaker 1: do you want to go to lunch? But it's a
Speaker 1: huge amount of money. I would hate for anyone to
Speaker 1: even start looking at putting towards an investment for a
Speaker 1: home theater without understanding these elements of sound and how
Speaker 1: the room that they choose might cause issues on the
Speaker 1: setup that they want. So these decisions all have to
Speaker 1: go hand in hand. You have to figure out, you know,
Speaker 1: what the physical spaces, how you want to change that
Speaker 1: physical space, if at all, in order to accommodate your system,
Speaker 1: and what system would best work within that space. Now,
Speaker 1: in most cases, you can find ways to address these
Speaker 1: issues so that they're not too much of a pain
Speaker 1: in the took is. Uh, they aren't game breakers or
Speaker 1: anything like that. But again, if you're really looking to
Speaker 1: create that incredible home theater uh you know experience, you
Speaker 1: have to take all this into account. So it it
Speaker 1: means that you have to know about the potential problems
Speaker 1: you could run into so that you can figure out
Speaker 1: solutions to them before you, you know, break the wallet
Speaker 1: in order to pay for a killer system. All right,
Speaker 1: So let's talk about sound setups now, way back in
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century. Don't worry, this will be short, but
Speaker 1: this was shortly after the invention of the telephone. There
Speaker 1: were people like Clement Adair who showed how two receivers
Speaker 1: or speakers could provide an interesting listening experience, with each
Speaker 1: speaker playing a slightly different aspect of that that sound.
Speaker 1: So Adder had set up telephones at the Paris Opera
Speaker 1: and positioned the telephones around the edge of the stage,
Speaker 1: and he ran transmission lines to a suite of rooms
Speaker 1: in a nearby building, so you could visit this exhibit.
Speaker 1: Is during an exhibition and Paris. You could sit down
Speaker 1: and you would hold up a pair of receivers, so
Speaker 1: you would hold one tier left ear and one tier
Speaker 1: right ear. And because the receivers were connecting to different
Speaker 1: telephone transmitters back at the Paris Opera, you would get
Speaker 1: a slightly different listening experience for each ear. Maybe one
Speaker 1: of the transmitters would be closer to the left side
Speaker 1: of stage and the other one closer to the right
Speaker 1: side of stage, so you would get a kind of
Speaker 1: stereophonic experience. Right you would be closer to what it
Speaker 1: would be like if you were there in the space yourself. Right. Obviously,
Speaker 1: when we're in a room, sound can be coming at
Speaker 1: us from all sorts of different directions, from different sources.
Speaker 1: But if we're watching something and it only has one speaker,
Speaker 1: then all the sound, all the elements of sound within
Speaker 1: a scene are coming from one direction, one source. Well,
Speaker 1: this was a germ of an idea that would kind
Speaker 1: of sit unused for a long time because we just
Speaker 1: didn't have the technology to be able to transmit different
Speaker 1: sounds two different speakers. Then we got an engineer named
Speaker 1: Alan Blumline. He created a method to record two separate
Speaker 1: channels of sound from the same you know, source, and
Speaker 1: each channel could go to a specific speaker, so you
Speaker 1: could have stereo sound this way. Right, you could designate
Speaker 1: certain sounds to be on the left side versus the
Speaker 1: right side. Now, this was in the nineteen thirties, and
Speaker 1: it was in response to the problem that at that
Speaker 1: time cinemas were reliant upon a single channel of sound.
Speaker 1: So even if you had multiple speakers set up in
Speaker 1: your theater room, each speaker would be putting out the
Speaker 1: same sound signal, Right, you would get the exact same
Speaker 1: sound coming out of each speaker's They'll be mono sound,
Speaker 1: no matter how many speakers you you hooked up, so
Speaker 1: you would have no sense of directionality when it came
Speaker 1: to the source of the sound. There'd be no connection
Speaker 1: between where something was happening up on screen and where
Speaker 1: it seemed to be happening in the soundscape around you.
Speaker 1: So if a woman on the left side of your
Speaker 1: screen shoots a pistol at someone on the right side,
Speaker 1: you know you'd hear the gun go off, but it
Speaker 1: would just come be allowed bang. There'll be no indication
Speaker 1: of what side that came from. It would just be
Speaker 1: associated with the visual bloomlines. Inventions allowed for more nuanced
Speaker 1: soundscapes and bloom lines work would go on to impact
Speaker 1: multiple industries like the music industry as well as film
Speaker 1: and television. But we're really interested in television's here, so
Speaker 1: we're gonna stick with that now. Stereo sound took a
Speaker 1: really long time to get to television's, at least to
Speaker 1: be fully integrated into the TV experience. Back in the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties, ABC did kind of an experiment with The
Speaker 1: Lawrence Welk Show, and the network provided stereo sound decades
Speaker 1: before anyone could broadcast in stereo. So how did they
Speaker 1: do that, well, it was kind of a cheat. See,
Speaker 1: the television signal carried a monophonic sound channel, so a
Speaker 1: single channel of sound recorded from this show, as was
Speaker 1: the style at the time, or rather as was the limitation.
Speaker 1: But ABC also happened to own a radio network, and
Speaker 1: if you had a television and a radio in the
Speaker 1: same area, and you could tune your TV into The
Speaker 1: Lawrence Wolke Show and your radio into the radio broadcast
Speaker 1: version of the Lawrence Wolke Show, you could take advantage
Speaker 1: of stereo sound because ABC set up microphones in the
Speaker 1: studio that went to the monophonic feed for television, so
Speaker 1: they were specific for the TV side, and they had
Speaker 1: a separate array of microphones set up to go to
Speaker 1: a different mono channel, this time to the radio. So
Speaker 1: two different mono channels that when you hear them combined
Speaker 1: creates a stereo experience. The mis were in different locations
Speaker 1: in the sound stage, but by combining both you get
Speaker 1: this more full, fleshed out audio experience. This was obviously
Speaker 1: a really clujie way to get stereo sound. Disney did
Speaker 1: the same thing too, by the way, working with ABC
Speaker 1: the show Walt Disney Presents produced the Peter Chaikowski Story.
Speaker 1: People Disney did this too, by the way, working with
Speaker 1: ABC the Show Walt Disney Presents produced the Peter Tchaikovsky
Speaker 1: Story and paired it with simulcasts both on AM and
Speaker 1: FM radio, so putting all that together would create the
Speaker 1: stereo effects while watching the program. While stereo sound became
Speaker 1: common with recordings like vinyl records and UH on the
Speaker 1: radio starting in the nineteen sixties and the following decades,
Speaker 1: and film really got into stereo sound in the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: stereophonic television wouldn't become a thing until the late nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies in Japan and the mid nineteen eighties in the
Speaker 1: United States. I'll talk about it more, but first let's
Speaker 1: take another quick break. All right, Let's talk about stereo
Speaker 1: TV and why it took so long to take off.
Speaker 1: Even after it was becoming a thing with like you know,
Speaker 1: records and film and stuff, there was really a chicken
Speaker 1: in the egg problem going on at the time. Consumers
Speaker 1: were reluctant to sink a lot of money into television
Speaker 1: sets that were compatible with stereo, or otherwise buying TV
Speaker 1: sets that you could connect to a stereo system like
Speaker 1: a Hi Fi stereo system and have the sound play
Speaker 1: out on big speakers as opposed through the television itself.
Speaker 1: This was a big investment and there really wasn't much
Speaker 1: content you could enjoy in stereo. So even after the
Speaker 1: engineers figured out how to broadcast stereos sound out to
Speaker 1: two listeners to viewers, there wasn't much that was actually
Speaker 1: done that way. You had television stations that didn't want
Speaker 1: to invest in the stereo transmission equipment. It's not like
Speaker 1: they could use the same stuff they were using for
Speaker 1: the mono uh equipment, you know, content. So that meant
Speaker 1: that there wasn't much you could use these four It's
Speaker 1: kind of like the early days of h D t V.
Speaker 1: You could buy an HDTV in the early days and
Speaker 1: you had nothing to watch on it because everything was
Speaker 1: still broadcasting standard definition. Uh. So that meant that it
Speaker 1: took some time for both sides to kind of get
Speaker 1: adoption rates going. You know, consumers had to feel like
Speaker 1: this was the way things were going to be, and
Speaker 1: TV stations and producers had to feel like there was
Speaker 1: a demand to supply that kind of content. But eventually
Speaker 1: stereo television did become commonplace, as did stereo recorded media,
Speaker 1: and for home theater enthusiasts, this usually meant that you
Speaker 1: would hook up your television either two speakers directly, or
Speaker 1: more often, you would feed the audio output from your
Speaker 1: television into a device called a receiver, which could transmit
Speaker 1: the channels of audio to specific speakers, giving you the
Speaker 1: stereo sounds so that you had a left channel and
Speaker 1: a right channel. UH these days where well beyond simple stereo,
Speaker 1: and the audio options can be daunting, particularly since there's
Speaker 1: a wide range of options that aren't always applicable for
Speaker 1: every source of media. For example, if you've shelled out
Speaker 1: the big, big bucks for a Dolby Atmos system complete
Speaker 1: with all the speakers you would need to make that
Speaker 1: a reality, and you find out that the media you're
Speaker 1: watching doesn't support Dolby Atmos, well you're not going to
Speaker 1: be able to enjoy the entire immersive effect. There are
Speaker 1: technologies that try to compensate for that. They're very similar
Speaker 1: in some ways to upscaling technologies with ultra high definition televisions,
Speaker 1: where there's an attempt to fill out UH stuff so
Speaker 1: that you can watch lower quality or in this case,
Speaker 1: listen to lower quality stuff. But on a high quality system,
Speaker 1: it's not perfect. It's not like it can magically create
Speaker 1: surround sound where there was no surround sound before, but
Speaker 1: it's better than you know, just just standard stereo. So
Speaker 1: with that in mind, if you are building out a
Speaker 1: home theater, it's good to make a list of questions
Speaker 1: that you need to answer so that you can start
Speaker 1: going down the right direction. So, are you planning on
Speaker 1: a home theater that's built around music? You know you're
Speaker 1: not thinking about a home theater space for TV. You
Speaker 1: want a really good music experience. Well, in that case,
Speaker 1: there might not be much point to building out a
Speaker 1: surround sound system because the standard format for music is stereo,
Speaker 1: not surround sound. Are you planning on watching a lot
Speaker 1: of cable or broadcast television, Well, you might want to
Speaker 1: look into surround sound, but you should know that a
Speaker 1: lot of programming still isn't necessarily broadcast in surround sound,
Speaker 1: so you wouldn't get a ton of benefit out of
Speaker 1: that either. In many cases. In this case, it would
Speaker 1: be a really good idea to see if whatever shows
Speaker 1: or content you plan on watching, if it actually is
Speaker 1: already in surround sound when it's being broadcast out. If
Speaker 1: it's not, there's no point in building out a surround
Speaker 1: sound system. If you plan to watch a lot of
Speaker 1: movies or play the latest Triple A video game titles, well,
Speaker 1: then surround sounds likely to play a big part of
Speaker 1: that experience. But let's start on the small end, all right.
Speaker 1: So stereo means we do have those two channels of sound, right,
Speaker 1: one channel for the left, one channel for the right.
Speaker 1: That's pretty simple. Typically you're also talking about a subwhiffer
Speaker 1: to handle the low frequencies, and we'll talk about subwhiffers
Speaker 1: more extensive later on. Surround sound requires at least three speakers,
Speaker 1: but typically you're looking at either five or seven plus
Speaker 1: the subwiffer. Uh. Then you've also got your receiver or mixer.
Speaker 1: This is a device that sends the proper channel of
Speaker 1: sound to each proper speaker. Right, it controls the mixing
Speaker 1: level of them all as well. So let's say you
Speaker 1: want to crank up the base so that the action
Speaker 1: film you're watching makes your house shake. You could do that,
Speaker 1: or maybe you're thinking, you know, I'm not getting as
Speaker 1: much out of the left side as I thought because
Speaker 1: of the way this room is so you might want
Speaker 1: to boost the left side a little bit so that
Speaker 1: on a technical level you would say the left side
Speaker 1: is putting out more volume than the right, but on
Speaker 1: an experience level, you could say, no, it feels this
Speaker 1: is what feels right to me. That's what is really
Speaker 1: important with these receivers and mixers is that they keep
Speaker 1: the signal nice and clean, that they're not mixing those
Speaker 1: those signals up, and that you're able to have this
Speaker 1: very fine control over the quality of those signals, including
Speaker 1: things like how much of each range of frequencies gets
Speaker 1: sent out to speakers, like if you want to tweak
Speaker 1: things like the trouble for example. Uh So, ultimately, when
Speaker 1: you really get down to it, this is all about
Speaker 1: getting the relative right sound levels out of each speaker
Speaker 1: so that your home theater sounds the way you want
Speaker 1: it to. That's what it really means. When you strip
Speaker 1: away all the language, all the jargon, all the knobs,
Speaker 1: all those different numbers, it's really just about getting the
Speaker 1: experience right so that it's what you wanted, the thing
Speaker 1: that you were imagining when you were building out your
Speaker 1: home theater. That's really what the only part that really matters,
Speaker 1: the numbers not so important. It's the experience that matters,
Speaker 1: and also a caveat surround sound works best for larger
Speaker 1: home theaters, like larger rooms for home theaters, if you
Speaker 1: have a relatively small room for your theater setup, it
Speaker 1: could actually be better to go with a stereo approach
Speaker 1: or a sound bar, and also probably with a subwhiffer,
Speaker 1: maybe not a super powerful subwhiffer if it's a small space,
Speaker 1: but still a subwiffer. Now you might be tempted to
Speaker 1: trick out even a small room with all the extra speakers,
Speaker 1: like I want a seven point one system in there.
Speaker 1: But when you are working with smaller spaces, you can
Speaker 1: have a lot of crossover issues with sound, which muddy
Speaker 1: the whole directionality thing right Like if the sound from
Speaker 1: the right side is in your ears hard to distinguish
Speaker 1: from the sounds from the left side, you haven't really
Speaker 1: accomplished anything. And with smaller spaces that can be a
Speaker 1: real issue. And at that point you've already spent a
Speaker 1: ton of money on a setup that just doesn't create
Speaker 1: the experience you wanted. So a stereo with a subwiffer
Speaker 1: or a sound bar in a subwiffer might work. A
Speaker 1: lot better for those kinds of spaces. Let's break down
Speaker 1: the s on sound experience a bit further to talk
Speaker 1: about what all those different channels and speakers are for.
Speaker 1: So on the most basic level, the whole idea is
Speaker 1: very similar to stereo. Each speaker in the surround sound
Speaker 1: system is carrying a specific channel of sound that relates
Speaker 1: to the speaker's physical location with your within your home
Speaker 1: theater and the sounds location within whatever media you're consuming.
Speaker 1: So that means that when you're building out your home
Speaker 1: theater system, it's important to position the speakers around your
Speaker 1: you know, preferred seating area in order to get the
Speaker 1: effect you want. This means, by the way, that if
Speaker 1: you are sitting in a different position than you know,
Speaker 1: the ideal space, you do get us slightly less than
Speaker 1: ideal experience because just as the way the sound is directed, Um,
Speaker 1: it's not like it's gonna be necessarily a world ender
Speaker 1: like you'll notice immediately, but depending upon the size of
Speaker 1: the room and the equipment you're using and how you've
Speaker 1: set it all up, it can be you know, something
Speaker 1: that you actually notice if you were to sit, say
Speaker 1: at the far extreme left side of your home theater
Speaker 1: versus the center. You might be able to tell the difference. Now.
Speaker 1: The first big film to use a surround sound approach
Speaker 1: was Fantasia, a Walt Disney production, and Disney famously required
Speaker 1: theaters to install incredibly expensive sound systems and equipment in
Speaker 1: order to play Fantasia as it was intended so that
Speaker 1: the sound would appear to kind of travel around and
Speaker 1: even through the audience. For example, during the piece fly
Speaker 1: of the Bumblebee, Walt Disney wanted to create an effect
Speaker 1: that would make it sound as though a bumblebee were
Speaker 1: really flying through the audience, and that meant Disney had
Speaker 1: to record multiple channels of sound and then funnel those
Speaker 1: channels two specific speakers at a specific timing around a
Speaker 1: theater and carefully tweaking all the channel levels of sound
Speaker 1: so that this specific sound would appear to travel around
Speaker 1: the audience. It was a technical marvel. I mean, it
Speaker 1: was truly a phenomenal technological achievement. It was also insanely expensive,
Speaker 1: and Phantasia did not set the box office on fire,
Speaker 1: so this became a bit of a sore point with
Speaker 1: some theater owners because they spent a huge amount of
Speaker 1: money for a system that was specifically designed for a
Speaker 1: film that was not a hit, So tough call there.
Speaker 1: In surround sound systems, you typically see numbers like five
Speaker 1: point one or seven point one. Sometimes you'll see two
Speaker 1: point one or five point one point two. Uh. The
Speaker 1: point one in this case that refers to the subwiffer,
Speaker 1: and the other number tells you how many channels of
Speaker 1: sound there are, plus how many speakers are involved with
Speaker 1: your typical systems. So, uh, with two point one, you've
Speaker 1: got the simple left channel, you've got the right channel,
Speaker 1: you get your subwiffer. You'd want to set the speakers
Speaker 1: up to the left and the right of the television,
Speaker 1: you know, left speaker on the left side, right speaker
Speaker 1: on the right side, angled so that they are pointing
Speaker 1: toward wherever you're going to be sitting to watch television,
Speaker 1: presumably in a position that's directly across from the TV.
Speaker 1: The sub whiffer, however, you can pretty much put anywhere
Speaker 1: in the room as long as you can, you know,
Speaker 1: still plug it into the receiver and if necessary, and
Speaker 1: external power outlet. A lot of subwhiffers require extra power
Speaker 1: because they're pushing around a heavier diaphragm inside the speaker.
Speaker 1: But then we get into the five point one and
Speaker 1: seven point one. This is where it gets a little
Speaker 1: more complicated. So what does a five point one system mean, Well,
Speaker 1: it means the system supports five horizontal channels of audio
Speaker 1: plus the subwhiffer, and typically you've got a center channel,
Speaker 1: so this speaker should sit like in line between you
Speaker 1: and the television. Often these speakers are mounted below or
Speaker 1: above the TV. This is where you usually get the
Speaker 1: majority of stuff like dialogue, unless it's something like a
Speaker 1: character who's off screen and their dialogue is coming from
Speaker 1: you know, a specific side, but usually like dialogue and
Speaker 1: stuff like that gets fed through the center channel primarily.
Speaker 1: Then you've got your left and right front speakers, which,
Speaker 1: like a two point one system, you would position to
Speaker 1: either side of your television. On the left side and
Speaker 1: the right side. You would have them angled towards where
Speaker 1: you plan to sit. But then you also have left
Speaker 1: and right surround channels, and these speakers you would typically
Speaker 1: mount to the left and right behind your seating area.
Speaker 1: So let's say you've got a couch, you would have
Speaker 1: these mounted behind your couch, but more off to the
Speaker 1: side than they are behind you right, so more off
Speaker 1: to your left and to your right than they are
Speaker 1: directly behind you. If you were to measure out the
Speaker 1: angle between your view of the TV and the speakers.
Speaker 1: So let's say that you know your your line of
Speaker 1: sight to the television marks the zero degree mark, then
Speaker 1: the angle would be somewhere around a hundred ten to
Speaker 1: a hundred twenty degrees. Uh so, so beyond like directly
Speaker 1: to your left or right a little bit, and um
Speaker 1: hundreds degrees to d degrees to your left and another
Speaker 1: to the right. Collectively, the speakers would create the soundscape
Speaker 1: that would have you surrounded by glorious noise. But then
Speaker 1: we get to seven point one, and I'm sure you've
Speaker 1: already gathered. Seven point one means that you've got seven
Speaker 1: channels of sound and thus seven speakers plus the sub wiffer.
Speaker 1: The setup is a little bit different. Here. You still
Speaker 1: have the center and you have the front left and
Speaker 1: front right speakers, just like five point one. Then you've
Speaker 1: still got the sub wiffer, but the surround channels now
Speaker 1: split from two channels, which were you know, back left
Speaker 1: and back right for five point one, and now it's
Speaker 1: four channels. So in this setup you would typically have
Speaker 1: one set speakers essentially directly to your left and directly
Speaker 1: to your right, so a ninety degree angle between your
Speaker 1: view of the TV and you know your left and
Speaker 1: right side, So these are pointing straight at your ears
Speaker 1: and other words, but you know, not at not like
Speaker 1: super close. They're off good distance on either side. Um,
Speaker 1: so those would be those two speakers. Then you would
Speaker 1: have rear two speakers that would be a little bit
Speaker 1: more behind you than the five point one. Remember five
Speaker 1: point one was at an angle of like a hundred
Speaker 1: two degrees. These would be more like a hundred thirty
Speaker 1: five to a hundred fifty degrees from your point of
Speaker 1: view of the TV, so so more behind you than
Speaker 1: the five point one version was. Then we've got a
Speaker 1: variation on this called Dolby atmos. So Dolby atmos repurposes
Speaker 1: two of the speakers in a seven point one system, Specifically,
Speaker 1: the two speakers that are positioned behind you, those ones
Speaker 1: that are at the one hundred fifty degrees viewing angle. Uh,
Speaker 1: theyse become height speakers, meaning you're to mount these higher up,
Speaker 1: maybe even suspend them from the ceiling itself, and these
Speaker 1: speakers then projects sound overhead of the audience, and that
Speaker 1: can create some really interesting effects when paired with media
Speaker 1: that supports Dolby Atmos, the overhead channels can add more
Speaker 1: specificity to the location of sounds, making the experience way
Speaker 1: more immersive. And the whole reason behind this was that
Speaker 1: the folks that don't be figured that people would be
Speaker 1: able to hear sound coming from above more effectively than
Speaker 1: they would hear sound coming from behind them because our
Speaker 1: ears are not really shaped in such a way that
Speaker 1: they're great for catching sound that's coming from behind us. Uh.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the Dolby Atmos gets the designation of five point
Speaker 1: one point two, meaning you have five channels of regular
Speaker 1: horizontal surround sound the center front, left, front, right, and
Speaker 1: then the left and right channels. Then you have the subwiffer,
Speaker 1: then you have the two channels of overhead audio. Confused yet,
Speaker 1: there are actually some other seven point one configurations, but
Speaker 1: they get really in the weeds, and for most people,
Speaker 1: I feel it wouldn't be helpful. I will go into
Speaker 1: a little bit detail in our next episode to kind
Speaker 1: of talk about them, but I'm not going to spend
Speaker 1: a whole lot of time on it because it just
Speaker 1: gets really, really nerdy in the home theater space, and
Speaker 1: for a lot of people, I think it's overkill, but
Speaker 1: we will touch on that in our next episode. So
Speaker 1: in our next episode, we are going to talk a
Speaker 1: little bit more about sound. We'll talk why we want
Speaker 1: a subwoper in the first place, for example. We'll chat
Speaker 1: a little bit about some of the other things we
Speaker 1: have to take into consideration with sound, and we'll also
Speaker 1: look at some of the other components that we would
Speaker 1: want in a home theater system, like the media sources
Speaker 1: and stuff, because obviously, having the best equipment in the
Speaker 1: world isn't gonna do any good if you're not feeding
Speaker 1: it media that can take advantage of it. So that'll
Speaker 1: be our next episode. That's it for this one. If
Speaker 1: I've left something out or there's something specific you want
Speaker 1: to know more about when it comes to home theater,
Speaker 1: reach out to me. I love hearing from you. The
Speaker 1: best way to do that is on Twitter. The handle
Speaker 1: for the show is text Stuff H s W and
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is
Speaker 1: an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from my
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, you visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows, h