prehistoric question

[larietrope]

Since I found out I have a Pro logic receiver hooked up to my 5 speakers, I need to ask, what am I missing in watching a movie that a 5.1 system adds ?
I'm a newbee, be gentle.

 

[MDS]

You are missing the ability to send digital audio to the receiver. The number and types of formats has exploded over the years but the constant among them all is the fact that each channel is 'discrete'; eg. a DD 5.1 soundtrack has six separate channels in the stream.

The engineers have the flexibility of putting different sounds in different speakers so that the audio is more realistic - like an airplane flying from left to right across the screen by placing that sound in the left, then center, then right speaker in a period of time. The Low Frequency Effects channel ('LFE' or .1) contains just very low bass and good bass adds to the realism.

When the receiver is sent a digital bitstream, it can manipulate it in more ways than when the input signal is analog. Features such as dynamic compression (aka 'late night' mode), cinema filter (tones down the treble), etc generally require a digital input signal.

 

[j_garcia]

What you are missing is the equivalent of using this:

vs this

With Dolby Prologic, your capabilities are now two generations behind the current technology, and the difference is quite significant. If you happen to have a receiver with multichannel analog inputs, which many pre-Dolby Digital era receivers did have, you may only need to upgrade to a player that has built in decoding and be able to benefit from even the latest audio formats.

 

[JerryLove]

If you happen to have a receiver with multichannel analog inputs, which many pre-Dolby Digital era receivers did have, you may only need to upgrade to a player that has built in decoding and be able to benefit from even the latest audio formats.

Except for wattage problems: DPL was oftenonly 10 or 15 watts per channel on the center/surround.

 

[westcott]

You may not be missing anything at all, depending on your listening habits and hearing.

Even more people that do have 5.1 systems don't calibrate them or set them up properly any way.

Then you add the speaker placement into the equation and their calibration and you could be ahead of most people.

I guess the jist of this rant is if you are going to do it, do it right.

Some great articles on how to set up and calibrate your equipment on this site and others.

Good Luck!!!!