SV Subwoofers
Page 11
A Glossary of Home Theater Terms
Don’t feel guilty if you want to skip over the below. But if you are curi-
ous about what some of the terms and abbreviations stand for, read on:
dB
- Short for “deci-Bell” a unit of sound, a 3dB increase takes twice
the acoustic power to attain!
DD
- “Dolby Digital”, the most popular form of digital surround sound,
usually found on DVD soundtracks. Actually a compression algorithm
that can provide 1 to 6 channels of movie audio .
DPL
- “Dolby Pro Logic”. The last generation of non-discreet channel
surround sound. Derived from 2 “matrixed” channels.
DTS
- “Digital Theater System” similar to DD, but with less compres-
sion. Many feel it sounds better than DD, but you be the judge.
DVD
- Amazing little video disk, DVD, doesn’t “mean” anything!
HT
- “Home Theater”. What you make of it. But a home (theater)
without a subwoofer, isn’t quite up to our definition!
Hz
- Short for Hertz, the German scientist who came up with a scheme
of measuring the frequency of sound waves. 15-30 Hz is very low bass
and very rare in anything but movie soundtracks. 60 Hz is generally
considered mid-bass above which most large full range speakers can
easily produce. The real fun (and real) bass, is in the middle of that
range, call it 20-40 Hz.
LD
- Laserdisc, grandfather to the DVD. Still capable of great picture
and sound. Increasingly going the way of the vinyl
33 1/3 LP
record.
LFE
- “Low Frequency Effects” are the “.1” channel in 5.1 or 6.1 chan-
nel sound-tracks. If you have a sub selected in your system, any LFE
signal goes there. The sub may get bass from other channels as well
however, depending on the “size” of speakers in your set-up.
RMS
- A common and accurate way to rate the power of an amplifier.
Literally “Root Means Squared”. Typically measured in “watts”.
SPL
- “Sound Pressure Level”, a fancy way of saying “Volume”. Usu-
ally measured in dBs.
Sub
- Short for subwoofer
“
5.1”
- Refers to 5
full range
channels and one
bass only
channel. Now
often reproduced as “6.1” channels, including a center rear speaker..
