
What it is, how it works, and why it’s an essential part of your entertainment experience
Your home theater design can take many forms. It can reflect your style while delivering your favorite movies, shows, sports, and video games with incredible sound and picture. But no matter what direction you take your San Francisco, CA media room or home theater, there are certain essential elements you’ll need to get the most out of it. Here, we’ll highlight one of them: immersive audio. What do you need to know? Find out here.
See Also: Home Theater Design Spotlight: Ultra-Short-Throw Projectors
What Is Immersive Audio?
If you’ve ever watched movies or TV, you probably already know about surround sound. Multi-channel systems spread movie soundtracks all around the room — in front of, around, and behind the viewer. The effect is a more robust audio experience.
Immersive audio adds a whole new dimension to a traditional surround setup. Where your current system may feature 5.1 or more channels placed around the room, an immersive configuration, like one designed for Dolby Atmos, also features two or more overhead channels. It helps create a sphere of sound with you at its center.
How Immersive Works
Of course, immersive audio is more than just a couple of extra channels mounted to your ceiling. It’s an entirely different way to listen. Combining traditional channel-based sound mixing with the more recently developed object-based method, formats like Dolby Atmos allow the sound to travel freely around the room for a realistic experience.
Rather than assigning each sound to a specific channel, or speaker, Atmos can treat sounds as independent objects. That means when you hear it, it won’t appear behind you — you’ll actually hear the movement of sounds around you, with a greater sense of height than ever before. Whether you’re watching a movie with giant, stunt-filled action scenes, or you’re getting lost in the game while following your favorite team, immersive systems put you right in the middle of the action.
Experience Immersive Audio
The best way to experience an immersive setup is with a full installation in your home theater. Your integrator can set up a 5.1.2 system or greater in your home theater or media room, and thanks to the excellent sound mixing and decoding, it will sound as good as a multichannel system you’d hear at the local megaplex.
But don’t forget, it’s 2020 and technology is becoming smaller and more accessible. If you want to experience Atmos in a smaller room or satellite space, many high-end audio manufacturers are now offering Atmos-enabled soundbars.
Whether you want a system that’s big or small, you can experience immersive audio in your home theater or media room. That’s why it’s an essential element of any home theater design.
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