5.1 vs. 71. Wich is best?
"Both options have advantages and disadvantages, depending on what source components you are using and what your personal preferences are.
5.1 Channel Home Theater Receiver Overview
5.1 channel home theater receivers have been the standard for two decades. They provide a perfectly good listening experience, especially in small to average-sized rooms. A 5.1 channel system consists of:
1. A Center Channel to provide an anchor stage for dialog or music vocal.
2. Left and Right Front channels to provide the main soundtrack information, or for stereo music reproduction.
3. Left and Right surround channels for side and front to rear motion effects from movie soundtracks and ambient sounds from music recordings.
4. The Subwoofer channel, which provides the extreme low frequency effects, such as explosions or bass response in music performances.
7.1 Channel Home Theater Receiver Overview
However, when trying to decide if a 5.1 or 7.1 channel home theater receiver is right for you, there are several practical features of a 7.1 channel receiver that could be of benefit that you may not have considered.
1. A 7.1 channel system incorporates all the elements of a 5.1 channel system, but instead of combining both surround and rear channel effects into two channels, a 7.1 system splits the surround and rear channel information into four channels. In other words, side sound effects and ambience are directed to left and right surround channels, and the rear sound effects and ambience are directed to two rear or back channels. In this set-up the surround speakers are set to the side of the listening position and the rear or back channels are placed behind the listener.
For a visual look at the difference between a 5.1 channel speaker layout and 7.1 channel speakers layout, check out an excellent diagram provided by Dolby Labs.
The 7.1 channel listening environment can add more depth the surround sound experience, provide more a specific, directed, and immersive soundfield, especially for larger rooms.
2. Although most Blu-ray soundtracks are 5.1, there are an increasing amount of Blu-ray soundtracks that contain 7.1 channel information - whether it be 7.1 channel uncompressed PCM, Dolby TrueHD, or DTS-HD Master Audio. If you have a 7.1 channel receiver with audio input and processing capability via HDMI connections (not pass-through only connections), you can take advantage of some, or all, of these audio capabilities. Check the specifications, or user manual, for each 7.1 channel receiver you may be considering for more specifics on its HDMI capabilities.
3. Also, even with playback of standard DVDs, if your DVD soundtrack only contains Dolby Digital or DTS 5.1 or, in some cases, DTS-ES 6.1 or Dolby Surround EX 6.1 soundtracks, by using the Dolby Pro Logic IIx extension or other available 7.1 DSP surround modes that may be available on your receiver, you can still extract a 7.1 channel surround field from both 2 or 5.1 channel source material.
4. Other surround sound extensions that can utilize 7.1 channels are Dolby Pro Logic IIz and Audyssey DSX. However, instead of adding two surround back speakers, Dolby Pro Logic IIz and Audyssey DSX allow the addition of two front height speakers. This provides additional speaker setup flexibility.
5. In addition, if you prefer 5.1 channels for your main room, most 7.1 channel receivers have the ability to use the extra two channels to provide a 2-channel speaker operation in a second location. What this means is that, in many cases, while you are listening and watching your DVDs in 5.1 channel surround sound in your main room, someone else could be listening to a CD (provided you have a separate CD player connected to your receiver) in another room, without having a separate CD player and receiver in the other room - just the speakers.
6. Another option that is becoming more common on 7.1 channel receivers is the use of Bi-amping. How this works is that if you have front channel Speakers that have separate speaker connections for the midrange/tweeters and the woofers (I am not referring to the subwoofer, but the woofers in your front speakers), you can reassign the amplifiers running the 6th and 7th channels to your front channels. Then enables you to retain a full 5.1 channel setup, but still add two additional channels of amplification to your front left and right speakers.
Using the separate speakers connections for the 6th and 7th channel on your bi-ampable speakers, you can double the power delivered to your front left and right channels. Your front mid-range/tweeters end up running off of the main L/R channels and your front speakers woofers running off your 6th and 7th channel Bi-amp connections.
The procedure for this type of setup is explained and illustrated in the user manuals for many 7.1 channel receivers. However, as I mentioned earlier, although this is becoming a more common feature, but is not included in all 7.1 channel receivers.
Final Take
To put it all into perspective, a good 5.1 channel receiver is a perfectly fine option, especially for a small or average room in most apartments and homes.
However, once you get into the $500 range and up, there is an increasing emphasis by manufacturers with 7.1 channel equipped receivers. These receivers can provide very flexible setup options as you expand your system's needs, or have a large home theater room.
On the other hand, even if you don't need to use the full 7.1 channel capability in your home theater setup, 7.1 channel receivers can easily be used in a 5.1 channel-only system. This frees up the remaining two channels on some receivers for Bi-amping use, or to run a two-channel stereo 2nd Zone system." Article source: www.hometheater.about.com.
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