Narasu Rebbapragada or PC World writes about Dolby showing off 13.1 -- that's 13 loudspeakers and a woofer. Naturally her article reports that the music selected by Dolby for the demo sounded "amazing." But then the same was said when stereo music and sound effects (2.0, in current parlence) were introduced in the 1960s.
(I've reported before on my disenchantment with 5.1 sound, and my return to two pairs of stereo speakers. Give me a set of analog bass and treble controls; all that digital monkeying around ruins the sound quality.)
Why is 13.1 needed? Consumers don't, but the music hardware industry does: it wants consumers to feel the need to buy 14 loudspeakers and replace their amplifiers, and all their DVD movies and music with those labeled 13.1.
Even since the demise of the cassette tape industry, where Dolby Labs made free $$$ through the licensing of its noise-reduction system, the company has been scrambing to make itself relevent in the digital age of near-perfect sound reproduction.
I say "near perfect" because as hardware makers look to cut costs, lower-quality components generate more noise, leading to lower signal-to-noise ratios; the S/N of my recently acquired Compaq V2000-series notebook computer is so dreadful that I cannot bare to hook up its sound output to a stereo for DVD playback.
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