In Reply to: RE: Surround sound for the hard of hearing posted by David Aiken on December 22, 2008 at 13:09:40:
I don't believe this is a situation where you want to begin making a large $ investment. From the tone of his comments, it looks more like he's trying to compensate for their hearing loss -- not bedazzle them with the world of surround sound. Ironically, in their situation, more speakers = more chaos = more disconnect with what's really the point of the movie/show/whatever that's unfolding in front of them.
As for adding a Center speaker, many people prefer to use no Center and instead have their receiver send the Center information to both speakers in a stereo setup. Voila, the dialogue's "centered" and you still have stereo sound with one less speaker to buy and (over, in this case) calibrate. And while I agree that more channels, even a limited version of more channels, is a direction that would seem to enhance the movie experience, it sounds to me like the focus is on compensating for hearing loss on a (low $) budget. Of course, I could be wrong...
Then there's this angle. Feeding $ to a receiver/speaker setup only helps in the home: what about the rest of the hours in the day and other situations outside the home? I wonder if anything has been done in the way of hearing aids, miracle ears, etc. If not, isn't this in a way giving them a fish instead of a fishing pole?
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Follow Ups
- phantom $ - Joe Murphy Jr 14:37:22 12/22/08 (1)
- RE: phantom $ - David Aiken 20:11:18 12/22/08 (0)