More Channels, a Reality…

From mono to stereo was a big transition and it was argued for many years that two loudspeakers corresponding to two ears was a magic formula and was an end to the road for humanity. With the advent of Quadrophonic by David Hefler’s Dynaco was truly ground-breaking. For the first time someone had audacity to question time-frozen ‘wisdom’.

That attempt died its own death, it was probably a sacrificial death that amazement-crazy demonstrators brought upon it by simply misusing the technology to showcase sound ping-ponging in different directions – without putting it to the real use.

Then came the brave attempt by Dolby Labs, but with a big difference. The new Dolby Pro-Logic had a crucial real centre channel added in between the front left and right channels. By the way, years back (even before the stereo heydays) the great Allen Blumlein had proposed more channels and a real centre channel – but it was rejected due to technical non-feasibility.

But the success of Dolby Pro-Logic with company’s great marketing genius wrote a new chapter in the audio as well as film industry. From analogue Dolby Pro-Logic to all digital Dolby Digital was another quantum leap. From matrixed and limited bandwidth analogue channels in Dolby Pro-Logic, Dolby Digital was offering full-range independent five digital channels and an independent bass channel – thus was the birth of the term 5.1! Not to forget the contemporary dts and its contribution in raising the bar and giving tough and quality competition to Dolby Digital.

Even these technologies could have met the fate of the Quadrophonic sound, but signing up with studios and better marketing this time saved them from the hara-kiri!

Audio industry got a new boost here, from man’s Audio world, the transition was startling to the family’s domain of AV world. More speakers, video equipment, more sophistication, faster obsoleting goods – AV world was suddenly in the fast lane.

It was beyond doubt that multichannel was the way to go for movie-watching. Like audiophiles, the whole new breed of videophiles was born!

Smaller milestones like going 6.1 and 7.1 were significant, as customers wanted to upgrade and go for the latest. However, there was a long lull, on the whole, from 5.1 onwards as the upgrades were technically not ground-breaking.

With the introduction of Dolby Atmos and Auro 3-D, there seems to be a genuine leapfrogging from the current standards. Both these competing formats have a new dimension, the added height channel. It is true that the sound can come from any direction in real life and we are capable of hearing them as they approach. It is true that as humans we have sharpest hearing abilities in the front and somewhat to the sides, and the back and the top being relatively weak – albeit, we can hear and locate those sounds with decent accuracy.

All the multichannel formats were unable to render this complete surrounding envelopment, but now with dedicated channels to the top we have a whole new dimension added. Both the formats work differently at encoding and decoding levels both, they even propose a different loudspeaker layout. There are a few processors existing today that accommodate both formats and fewer that compensate for different placements.

While Auro 3-D has three distinct height layers, one at the ear level, second a slightly higher and third being on top of the head – the listener needs to have complete loudspeaker envelopment, horizontally as well as vertically. Technically the idea is very convincing, but practically it is possible only in dedicated rooms. Once again putting question mark on ‘home’ part of home theatre!

Dolby Atmos on the other hand has much practical take on the whole situation. It recommends rows of height channel speakers which are relatively placement friendly. It also suggests compromises with dual channel loudspeakers where the top speaker can be placed on top of the front and surround speakers so that they can reflect from the ceiling. To add to the practicality it makes no qualms in using any other reflective speaker that may not be a dual channel speaker.

It is strange and funny, however, to see the paradoxes. The simpletons on one hand are hell bound on reducing the number of boxes of Hi-Fi system and are fast moving towards sound bars (a single box is more preferable to a separate sub here!) and there is quest to have more discrete channels and number of speakers on the other hand! It will be interesting to see the market skimming where the pendulums will shift to extremes and both will survive with indifferent and discerning customers.