Dolby digital surround 5.1 speakers test music

Every reviewer at What Hi-Fi? This is crucial for testing speakers, especially if they're new: it's best to use songs that you know really well to hear what the speakers are capable of. By that token, you'll probably also have your own playlists for testing the various facets of audio performance, but what's the harm in adding a few more tracks? As part of our best test tracks to trial your hi-fi system guide, we've put together a list of ten songs along with some extra suggestions that we use to test every aspect of a pair of speaker's performance, from treble and bass quality to the way they handle rhythm and dynamics. To get you listening to these tunes right away, we've put together a playlist of these songs on our favourite music streaming services:. Your speakers must strike the perfect balance between organisation and attack, between dynamism and poise and, most importantly, between control and abandon, throughout the frequency range.

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Content:

• Low audio from surround speakers when watching TV
• 10 of the best songs to test your speakers
• Best Dolby Atmos speakers and soundbars: your guide to object-based audio
• Best Surround Sound Movies
• HTML5 AAC Audio Playback Tests - Multichannel
• Play audio in Dolby Atmos or surround sound on your Apple TV
• 5.1 surround sound
• Test Spatial Audio on AirPods Pro with Surround Speaker Check
• My 5.1 surround setup works with audio test but not in actual use
• Big Picture Big Sound

WATCH RELATED VIDEO: Dolby film with 5.1 surround audio

Low audio from surround speakers when watching TV

Sometimes sound even overplays the visual". If you've chosen the comfort of your home over getting covered in popcorn at your local cineplex, then the quality of your own speaker system for movie nights is hugely important. Whether you have a 5. Volume dial at the ready You could easily compile a complete and compelling list comprising solely Hans Zimmer soundtracks — he's unarguably the modern master when it comes to adding scale and drama.

One thing he makes clear is that there's far more to delivering immersive sound than volume and impact. This scene is a slow-burner, as so many of his classic tracks are, beginning by delivering brooding with tension and a sense of impending drama. Rumbling bass will wake up your subwoofer before the dive through the black hole ratchets up the action. Ominous organ notes give way to panicked details as the ship threatens to disintegrate all around you. Awesome images help of course but without the stunning soundtrack Interstellar certainly wouldn't have the same impact.

A brilliant way to remind you how great home cinema can be. View Interstellar [4K Blu-ray] on Amazon. Beans, hurled by a police captain in slow motion, meticulously ping around the room and bounce off a circle of drums, requiring your system to track their trajectory precisely.

Integration is key here, and the soundfield should take on the dimension of — and be as tight-knit as — the drum arrangement, thus putting you at the centre of it.

Ready for more? Later on, the five-minute bamboo-forest fight — just as awesome as it sounds — offers a similar challenge when it comes to precision and cohesiveness, as branches creak, break and soar through the air.

Want to know what Dolby Atmos is all about? Get yourself a copy of Angelina Jolie's Unbroken and head straight to the bombing raid. It's glorious from the off, opening with a choral score that should sound heavenly on your speakers. It slowly gives way to the hum of the approaching squadron of bombers and you need to be able to hear real dimension to the individual rotor blades of their propellers buzzing by.

The real meat of the action is the dog fight with the Japanese planes swopping through the soundscape, followed closely by rattling machine gun fire spiralling after them. Atmos is about more than just height. The extra axis of sound means the designer can pick and place effects into the soundfield as well as adding that overhead dimension. This scene has both, and if you're not ducking your head every time the enemy comes in for another pass, then it's time to upgrade your equipment.

View Unbroken [Blu-ray] on Amazon. While the absence of crowd noise arguably detracts from the bedrock design of the archetypal gig experience, the 5. The bottom line: it should sound sublime through your system. And look it, too. Promising a multi-sensory celebration of melody and technology, it also happens to be one of the more visual performances, with contrasting projections displaying antique cars and driverless cars on empty, sun-kissed motorway vistas.

The opening scene from Edgar Wright's Baby Driver won't do much for your centre channel but your front and rear pairs are going to love it. While it begins with a ringing sound that should come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time, this sequence gets going as a test for your stereo pair.

It's a song with serious attack and it needs to come across with - no pun intended - real drive. If you don't want to hear it again by the end of the scene, then your set-up is doing something wrong. When the getaway begins, though, it's about how your surround speakers integrate with the fronts. The tyres should screech across the soundscape as the car slides about and it mustn't be so clumsy as to sound like the effect is simply chucked from speaker to speaker.

Ideally, it moves across the space so subtly and seamlessly that you forget about your system altogether - not an easy thing to do when you're testing, we grant you. From a Baby Driver to a Taxi one - there's not much in the way of whizz-bangs in this Scorcese classic to test out the effects chops of your home cinema system but, for music and for dialogue, it's a winner. Expression and dynamism are the watchwords for your front and rear pairs from the minute that the title sequences of this film begin.

It's a drive-by of night-time New York City set to Bernard Herrmann's incredible score which slips from languid to dangerous in an instant. You're looking for your speakers to melt into the background and produce an all round, open sound that you can almost bathe in. It needs to lull you into relaxation before smacking you round the face with discord in a reminder of the Travis Bickle that's yet to come. Then it's a great test for your centre speaker as Bickle answers questions at his taxi driver job interview.

He's a bit of a mumbler but his words should still be nice and clear and it should be impossible for him to hide his troubled nature behind them. His controller gets the sense that there's something not quite right with Bickle and so should the audience. Marvel means nothing if not great action, and the web-slinger is an awesome character to test big swushing surround effects. This mid-movie, first-time showdown between Spider-man and the Vulture is an excellent work-out for a home cinema set-up.

It begins with some pretty standard busy action - gun shots from left, right, up and down; smart dialogue; a jaunty soundtrack - and then quickly moves to a full-on swinging and flying fest from the two lead characters. The final act is possibly the most telling, certainly for your sub. There is some wonderfully unearthly groaning and buckling of the hull when the ferry splits in two — which needs to be communicated by your system with terrifying weight to give that genuine sense of scale.

That said, this is a moment for revealing your system's talents for dynamics and detail too. The soundscape gets very bare. The music drops away and we really need to hear true empty silences between those incredible, singular effects. Weedy set-ups need not apply. Handled bluntly, it loses that sense of wonder and adventure. Home cinema sound isn't always about those blockbuster moments — and the second sequence of Guardians of the Galaxy is case in point.

The filmmaking here is all about the atmosphere and how it changes twice. To begin with, we need an ominous feel to the deserted city. Your system will need the dynamic skill to render every drop of rain against the moody string soundtrack. Your sub will need to be big enough to hit you chest every time water shoots up from the planet's surface but not be so soft that the effect is too muffled. Then, when Quill dons his Walkman and plays Come and Get You Love , it needs timing to bring out the real rhythmic joy and silliness of watching him dance around in the cave.

And then we get to the action as he's confronted by Ronan's men. We need clear, defined pulses from the laser blasts, the crackle of Quill's jet boots and, of course, some nice clear pre-fight dialogue. It's a complete home cinema work-out and will offer a quick pointer to where you might have a weakness.

In fact, the retired-but-not-anymore hitman is probably cooler than Neo in every way: he has better suits, better gun-fights and better one-liners. And the disc is a wicked test for your home cinema system. Take chapter 7, the club scene, where Wick brutalises a queue of henchman while chasing a towelled Alfie Allen through crowds of merrymakers. There's no huge surround effects but your speaker package will still need a balletic poise, agility and huge reserves of muscle to handle the exquisitely precise choreography.

The underlying track, Le Castle Vania by LED Spirals , should lead with a compelling sense of purpose and then be clearly and neatly punctuated by every hit and point-blank shot to the face without anything missing a beat. Even your centre has work to do with moments of dialogue. Well, we say dialogue — it's more like groans and tortured death rattles. But it is centre channel business nonetheless.

They really shouldn't have killed his dog. Among the first animated films with a Dolby Stereo soundtrack, it was presented on DVD in with a 5. You just might want to turn it down when the school kids rampage around their classroom! The soaring music should end with blaring horns and a moment of awe as the pristine starship is finally revealed. And when it hits warp speed, your system should be delivering that gut-punching, precise sound effect with layers of deep, taut bass.

Crowd scenes, like in chapter 17, hustle and bustle with effects showcasing pinpoint accuracy when it comes to placement within the soundfield. Keanu Reeves makes a second appearance on this list with the Wachowski's seminal film. Dan Davis's atonal orchestral score should fill the surrounds, and consequently your room, with an expansive quality that's an excellent, expressive accompaniment to the action on screen.

But it's in the third act when the action ramps up that the fun happens: the moment when Neo and Trinity call for guns " lots of guns" should fill the room while the iconic Bullet Time sequences should pan through your surround speakers so well that you'll want to reach for the rewind button.

Bass needs to be a big and arresting presence but also clean and tightly controlled. This two-hour chase opera might sound a mess on a lesser system, but it's not supposed to be a wall of noise.

Each gunshot, engine rev and grunted Tom Hardy dialogue needs to be distinguishable. Yes, really. Containing interplay between internal and external space, crashes, rain and a searing wide panned score in the same key as the Ford GT 40 engine, no less , this set piece is a sonic masterclass in authenticity and power with a very human story at its centre.

But for giving your surround system a quick runabout, the shorter Willow Springs race toward the start of the film is ideal. As Ken Miles played by Christian Bale steers from the open cockpit of his Ford Cobra, you should feel heavily wind buffeted from all sides. Meanwhile, in seamless transitions to exterior shots, the continuous directionality of the cars as they zip across the screen, or skid off the track, is precisely located.

With the right system, the layers of sound should feel visceral and thrilling without being overbearing. It's an impressionistic bit of sonic storytelling in the midst of action that should naturally envelop the viewer without feeling distracting or disjointed. Set 30 years after the events of its predecessor, Blade Runner is not so much a sequel but an extension of the original's universe, only this time with more plot.

As with the first Blade Runner , notably embeds sound into the score, blurring the lines between effects and music to create a unified sonic landscape full of tonality, motion and texture. Watching the opening scene, you should feel immediately feel blanketed in the musical atmosphere. One of the first sounds that will strike you, as well as your subwoofer s , is the sonorous, undulating bass. If your drivers can cope with the LFE, it should feel expansive without masking the other details in the scene, like the spinner flying overhead or the buzzer waking Ryan Gosling.

Some of the most sonically revealing moments in are the quietest, and there are a lot of them, especially when it comes to the treatment of dialogue. Even with rippling delays and reverb tails ricocheting all around, you should still find that the screen pulls and holds focus. Throughout the tense 90 minutes of Gravity as Sandra bullock hurtles through the vacuum of space with only George Clooney for company, the Oscar-winning Dolby Atmos mix only available on the limited edition Diamond Luxe Blu-ray or the special edition HD Blu-ray both helps the viewer find focus within the confusing geography of nothingness while also heightening the sensation of disorientation.

In a film where becoming untethered is a constant threat, the sound team decided to set the dialogue-free from the centre of the screen and allowed it to track with the actors.

10 of the best songs to test your speakers

Sometimes sound even overplays the visual". If you've chosen the comfort of your home over getting covered in popcorn at your local cineplex, then the quality of your own speaker system for movie nights is hugely important. Whether you have a 5. Volume dial at the ready You could easily compile a complete and compelling list comprising solely Hans Zimmer soundtracks — he's unarguably the modern master when it comes to adding scale and drama. One thing he makes clear is that there's far more to delivering immersive sound than volume and impact.

Best Dolby Atmos speakers and soundbars: your guide to object-based audio

Unlike lossless audio, which merely promises improved sound quality , Atmos is touted as a revolution in music recording and reproduction. By creating a sense of sonic immersion, with sound appearing to come from around and above the listener rather than from a pair of speakers or a set of headphones, Atmos music offers the potential for more realistic simulations of live concerts and for creative effects normally reserved for movie soundtracks. Fortunately, a few weeks before the coronavirus pandemic hit, I got an extensive Atmos music demo from Dolby in its state-of-the-art Hollywood theater, so I already understood how the technology worked and how dazzling—and sometimes dull—Atmos music can sound. Dolby Atmos technology can reproduce sound from any and every direction—not only all around the listener but also overhead. When used effectively, Atmos can make a living room sound like a forest in springtime, a bustling avenue in Manhattan, or seat G at Carnegie Hall PDF. Dolby created Atmos primarily to add sounds coming from speakers in the ceiling, to deliver more convincing simulations of movie sound effects such as rainstorms and airplanes flying overhead. Atmos has been used for movies since and is often available on Blu-ray soundtracks and through many video-streaming platforms.

Best Surround Sound Movies

From Apple Music to the movie theaters, here's how Dolby Atmos surrounds you with sound from all directions -- even above. What not many people realize is that this particular branch of the technology has been with us for quite a few years, where it has been, and still is, known as Dolby Atmos. Dolby Atmos is a popular surround-sound format, a competitor to DTS:X , and it's found in everything from the biggest commercial cinemas to home theater systems -- and now on mobile phones. While this format, also known as "immersive,"was originally designed for movie theaters, it is now used as a new way to remix and listen to music from the likes of The Beatles and Ariana Grande. While the biggest change in the cinema was the addition of height channels, Atmos soundtracks can work with many different systems, no height speakers required.

HTML5 AAC Audio Playback Tests - Multichannel

Stereo only uses two channels, a left and a right channel. All modern music is recorded in stereo and most movies and videos have a stereo option. A lot of media you encounter will be encoded for stereo sound. While stereo has the two channels of sound, surround systems normally have over five speakers arranged in specific ways. Media encoded for surround sound will create a sound field around you, similar to what you would hear if you were in a theater. Whether it be content from your cable or satellite provider, a movie you've purchased or are streaming online, or even an album that you're trying to enjoy, it's important to consider the type of audio experience you're expecting vs.

Play audio in Dolby Atmos or surround sound on your Apple TV

This research by Headphones Pro Review is supported by our readers. We may earn a commission when you purchase through our links. Learn more.. Everyone is into top quality visuals and sounds lately. Primarily, the concept of surround sound systems is used in movie theatres and is now being widely incorporated into home cinema systems. Now, what exactly is surround sound?

5.1 surround sound

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Test Spatial Audio on AirPods Pro with Surround Speaker Check

RELATED VIDEO: Dolby Digital 5.1 - Orchestra - Intro (HD 1080p)

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My 5.1 surround setup works with audio test but not in actual use

This sound field is best suited for playing back audio signals as they are from two front speakers only, without adding any virtual surround effect. There is no sound from the subwoofer. When 2-channel or monaural audio signals are input, the receiver outputs sound from all speakers without adding any surround effect. When multi-channel audio signals are input, sound may not be output from certain speakers depending on the speaker settings or playback content. This makes it possible to reproduce height information for sound images even when playing back conventional movie or audio content, providing a more realistic sense of immersion than ever before. Audio Enhancer only works on 2-channel sound sources with a sampling frequency of

Big Picture Big Sound

You can watch titles in 5. If you meet these requirements but are not hearing 5. Titles that have 5. If your device's audio output settings are set to stereo or Linear PCM, you'll need to select a 5.