Quote:
Originally posted by mighty mint
In regards to THX speakers, Ruined, I was told that in order to maximize the true THX sound field, one needed to have THX certified speakers. Do you know if this is true or just another way to make the consumer pay more money for a stamp on a speaker?
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The only thing using THX speakers maximizes is the size of THX's income, along with the inaccuaracy of your sound.
In effect, there are simply three things you need for a THX speaker system:
1. The system must be able to handle a moderate amount of power
2. The front speakers in the system must have a diminished verticle dispersion to reduce ceiling and floor reflections.
3. The surround speakers must be dipolar, bipolar, or tripolar in order to increase the ambience of the surround field.
#1 is rather useless, because any decent speaker should be able to handle a moderate amount of power.
#2 actually makes the soundfield less realistic, especially for music, and is really only useful in a poorly designed home theater room (which can be fixed in better ways than limiting the dispersion of your speakers, such as adding carpeting, sound diffusers, etc)
#3 is completely unnecessary and actually damaging to the surround field with the advent of 5.1 sound. The best surround field in a standard room is achieved by placing monopolar (standard direct firing speakers) bookshelf speakers on opposing side walls facing each other, 10 degrees behind the listening position, and raised 6 to 8 feet off the ground. Dipolar/Bipolar/Tripolars were used back when ProLogic was the only surround format because these speakers created a more "stereo" sounding surround field with the mono-surround field Prologic format. They do so by bouncing the sound all over the room before it reaches your ear. These days, a properly setup 5.1 system with monopolar surrounds will sound superior, as the surround field is already stereo, and it does not have the degraded quality and convoluted sound that dipolar/bipolar/tripolar speakers present.
So in essence, THX speakers will likely do more damage than good to your system compared to similar quality non-THX speakers.