Upgrade to 7.2 or 9.2 - Questions

rjs2

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First post from a lurker over the years. I'm moving house and looking at upgrading my current 5.1 system.

Source wise, I generally watch things recorded from sky hd as opposed to discs.

I'm currently thinking either the Sony 1060 with 7.2 (with front highs as my front 3 are close-ish together) or the pioneer lx58 & a 9.2. I've got enough speakers after some ebay purchases of identical rear speaks a while back. The room is fairly large, although there is only about 1.5m between me and the rear wall.

A few questions if I may,

1) Are front high channels achieved through electronic wizardry? I guess so

2) If I watch something with a 5.1 soundtrack, will the amp use similar wizardry to make something appear out of the centre rears, or will they just be silent?

3) Will 4k broadcasts, when they arrive, (or streaming) have more channels than 5.1?

Thanks in advance

RJS
 
A conventional 7.1 configuration doesn't utilise height speakers. You have front left, right and centre then 2 rears to either side of you and then 2 back speakers. Excluding Atmos and DTS:X, there's no audio that has discrete height channels embedded within it and even the new object oroientated formats use metadata and not channels to determine which speakers are utilised, but there are soundtracks that do include discrete 7.1 audio.

Yes, front height channels are created using digital signal processing that generates pseudo channels for output via height speakers. The processing associated with this is primarilly Dolby's Pro Logic iiZ or Audyssey's DSX processing.

Dolby Pro Logic IIz

DSX | Audyssey

It is usually suggested to go with 7.1 as opposed to 5.1 plus height speakers if space allows because there's actual 7.1 content available to take advantage of a 7.1 configuration. You'd not need UHD to experience this seeinng as many HD Blu-rays include 7.1 audio. There are new formats such as Dolby's Atmos and DTS:X that can utilise more speakers, but the additional speakers aren't dependant upon channels present within the mix. The current home potential for such formats stands at 11 speakers arranged in a 7.1.4 configuration. You be able to have an Atmos 7.1.2 or a 5.1.4 setup with the Pioneer.

All speakers within any setup can be utilised even if the audio isn't natively encoded with the associated channels. All AV receivers include signal processing that can upmix the audio to utilise all of the speakers present. If for example you've a 7.1 setup, but the audio is only 5.1 then you could use Dolby Pro Logic iix to create two pseudo back channels. If you had an Atmos setup then you'd use Dolby's Dolby Surround Upmixing to utilise all of those speakers with audio not encoded with Atmos.

TV broadcasts and content available via streaming services are unlikely to expand upon Dolby Digital 5.1, but there's scope to include the Atmos metadata in association with SD Dolby Digital plus encoded content.
 
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