What is the difference between stereo and surround sound?
In: Technology
I’ll go a bit more in-depth.
Stereo: 2 speakers in front of you aimed at you (or headphones).
Surround Sound: Multiple speakers aimed at you and likely a subwoofer or 2.
For surround sound, you add a “center” speaker between the left & right speakers, usually in/on your tv cabinet. The center speaker gets nearly 100% of all the on-screen dialogue and the majority of non-ambient sounds. Your left & right speakers along with surround/height speakers are mainly for playing the soundtrack of a movie, any ambient sounds, and and sounds panning moving around.
A 5.1 means 5 speakers and 1 LFX channel, typically a subwoofer. The 3 main speakers are your left,center,right, the other 2 are your surrounds which go to your sides.
A 7.1 adds 2 speakers behind you.
A 9.1 adds 2 speakers between your left/right and the surrounds.
Then you have height speakers, these are your Dolby Atmos and DTS:X movies. I know we are in a pandemic, but in the future locate a movie theater near you with a Dolby Cinema and see a blockbuster film.
Height speakers are speakers that go in/on your ceiling and some can go on your walls near the top. For 2 height speakers on a 5.1, it turns to 5.1.2, for 4 heights in a 7.1 it’s 7.1.4. These speakers are in specific locations as well. For home use, Atmos can go up to 24.1.10 and looks [like this](https://1sd8cp36yiis47168hvghagm-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Andrew-Lucas-3D_Audio_configuration-Dolby-Atmos-24.1.10-1.png).
Now, usually when making the audio for a movie, they don’t make a separate version for each combination, they usually make 1 version in Atmos or DTS:X, and then convert it to 9.1/7.1/5.1/stereo, which is one reason why dialogue is hard to hear from a tv, it’s playing >30 channels of audio with only 2 speakers (the main reason though is that tv speakers aren’t good quality).
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