which speakers 2.1 or 4.1??

noman

hi..

i haven't used multi-channel speakers before..just regular sterio speakers....here is the question..

which should i buy?
4.1 or 2.1??

i read somewhere that 2.1 give better music than 4.1
i want to know if the 4.1 will sound equal to 2.1 in music?is the difference in physical constructionn or setup(2 satelite vs 4 satelites)??

what i want to use them for is...good music and occasional gaming .......

Thrax

4.1 will most assuredly give better quality than 2.1; that is <b>if</b> you buy a good 4.1 set. Klipsch and the Logitech z560s are both excellent choices.

Sputnik

if you're gonna go with 4.1s, might as well go with 5.1s. cheap and descent 5.1s would be the logitech z640s (have a set myself). They are good for music, games, and movies. their old z680s are argueablely the best computer specific 5.1s (though have been superceeded by the z5500).

If you're watching movies, you'll love that extra satalite, but if just music with occational games, stick with thrax's suggestions

shwaip

before you buy 4/5.1s, make sure there's a place for you to put the two rear speakers...I live in a dorm and don't really have space for the two rear ones anywhere.

mmonnin

I dont either, they all sit in front of me.

EMT

For music recorded in 2 channels (and you'd be hard-pressed to find music recorded in more!) there's hardly any reason to go 4.1. If music plays out the rear, your soundstage gets screwed up; if it doesn't, then what's the point? However, it might help to have rear speakers when you're playing an FPS.

noman

before you buy 4/5.1s, make sure there's a place for you to put the two rear speakers...

i have a lot of room...may be a little too much...
BTW..where to put the rear ones?on the floor or where??


i don't do games/movies too much but i thought it might be good if i had option for surround......(since i want to utilize the surround encoding of my soundstorm )

For music recorded in 2 channels (and you'd be hard-pressed to find music recorded in more!) there's hardly any reason to go 4.1. If music plays out the rear, your soundstage gets screwed up; if it doesn't, then what's the point? However, it might help to have rear speakers when you're playing an FPS.

i don't know abt all this terminology of sound stage or dispersion and imaging etc.etc .....

Q# plz tell me in simple terms how is 4.1 bad for music(i know why its good for games.)...?

-Q#1- Do 4.1 mess up the music too much or mess it a little bit??

--Q#2- is the difference(between 2.1/4.1 sound quality) due to

physical construction(tweeter or no tweeter or whatever
or
setup(2 satelite vs 4 satelites)??

Flintstone

First, soundstage refers to how the sound would present itself to you as if you were at a concert and the source of the sound were on a stage in front of you. What you would here would be proportional to your position in front of the stage. If, for example, the bass guitar were on the left side of the stage and the lead guitar was on the right and you were standing in the exact middle, the image your hearing would perceive would be just as you saw it. Stereo speakers should present a recorded image of the same show to your ears the same way. You should be able to "place" the guitar on the right and the bass on the left, in your "mind's eye".

Now, 4.1
Unless the show was recorded so as to provide 4 ture, separate channels for the 4 speaker positions, then the processing equipment must "synthesize" those extra 2 channels from the provided 2 channel stereo information. In the process of synthesizing the extra 2 channels, the stereo image, as described above, CAN get muddled. It depends on the processing equipment as to how bad it can get. Now, add in any additional noise that the processing may (and very typically will) add to the synthesizing process and together with the muddled image, you have degraded sound quality.

So:
Q#---Answered above. Depending on your processing equipment, 4.1 can seriously degrade the quality of a stereo signal.
Q#1---This is almost totally subjective. Some people wouldn't notice a difference unless you did an A-B comparison, i.e. switching back and fourth from one to the other and pionting out the difference.
Q#2---Answered above, it has to do with the degradation of the stereo signal in the electronic or computer processing to make it a 4 channel signal, not so much the construction of the speakers themselves. However, it obviously, physically, takes more electronic hardware to produce 4 channels well than it does to produce 2 channels well.

I hope that is the answer you were looking for, no matter how verbose it ended up!

Good Luck,
Flint

Enverex

Loving the Gigaworks 7.1 system here, just make sure you have somewhere to put the rear speakers...

floppybootstomp

I bought my first 5.1 system a few months ago and Games and Movies sound great. I have the two rear speakers on long skinny floor stands, they're not behind me but to either side of my desk, pointing at each ear.

Using the Soundforce onboard sound.

But - I can't get my music to sound as good as my old 2.1 system. I've tweaked just about everything to get a sound that's just about acceptable, but then I have to change all the settings back for Games & Movies.

I'm honestly thinking about changing back to the 2.1 system but damn, Games sound good with the 5.1 setup.

I actually bought a Hercules speaker system. I think that may be part of the problem, I honestly think I may have purchased a Turkey and may well consider just ditching them and getting one of those new Logitech speaker sets.

noman

allright....

i got it...thanx

one more queestion...

suppose..
i have a 4.1 system.........but when i listen to music i disconnect the rear satelites........would it become 2.1 then?and sound good for music?..........
my soundcard has options where it will optimize output for 2,4,6 speakers.....

Enverex

Er.... there shouldn't be any difference for music with the rear speakers connected or not...

morfeu

I have the Z640 and i am very happy with it, its rocks on movies and also on music, with an SB Audigy 2 ZS.

Medlock

Enverex wrote:

Er.... there shouldn't be any difference for music with the rear speakers connected or not...

I agree. When there's any stereo sound coming from the system the rear speakers just mirror the front. Rear left is the same as front left, and rear right becomes front right. the center speaker is quite useless until you play a game or soemthing that actually uses it.

At least, this is MY experience with a fairly cheap Creative solution. (Creative Sound Blaster 5.1 and Creative Inspire 5.1 5200. Analog speakers )

Noman, I definitely recommend 4.1 or 5.1 if you can afford it.

Enverex

My Audigy drivers do that by default and it drives me mad, luckily when I use the hacked Audigy 2 ZS drivers I can turn it off so it goes back to normal.