This is a story all about how my sound got flipped-turned upside down, and I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there, and I'll tell you how I got an epic sound system. Sorry, had to do it. Now, about my sound system.

Those who have visited my room at college, or lived with me for any period of time should know that I am an audiophile. I like music, and I like it when it sounds great. Actually, I sometimes use it even as a focusing method, to drown out distracting noises (random building noises, people walking by, people talking to me, etc). Additionally, when I play computer games, I prefer the sound to be impeccable. Not only should I be able to hear all parts of an explosion clearly, but I especially enjoy moments when I frag someone because I heard him sneaking up behind me.

To achieve all of this, a quality sound system is needed. I first realized this after a small summer project of building my own pre-amplifier and power amplifier, and receiving a couple of great Dual speakers that look something like this:

Ehh, sure, they're actually made for outdoor use, so they do not have bass ports (those weird holes you see in other speakers), but they still have great sound. They have uniform response across all frequencies, which is also complemented by my pre-amplifier, which can manage the bass and treble outputs. Music on these is great. Heck, even gaming is great. But, what about that "hearing people behind me" thing?

That's a job for surround sound. It can technically be done with two speakers, but it's hard... It requires knowledge of the user, the room, and various other things. There are some things that can simulate it using plain headphones, like this:

Make sure you're wearing headphones. It's awesome.

What that was was a "simulation" of surround sound. Not the true thing, but pre-processed to sort of sound like it. It sounds best when the sound is actually moving, as when the people move around, but is lacking if they stand still. That's because, similarly to human 3D vision, that video only shows what you see in a video game on a flat screen. Namely, it looks 3D if you move around in the game, but if you stand still, you can't tell what's closer or farther away. It's an illusion.

Even so, it's better than just having left and right from my speakers. So, I got these nifty headphones (which I wholeheartedly recommend) that try to simulate 7.1 surround sound using just two speakers (one for each ear). This works... to a certain degree. If I hear a static noise to my left in a game, it's still difficult to tell whether it's at a 1700 position or at a 2200 position.

True surround sound uses multiple speakers. A surround sound system is described by two numbers, separated by a dot; for example: 7.1. This means that the system uses 7 sattelite speakers set up in some pattern around the listener, and 1 subwoofer, for delivering powerful bass. There is only one subwoofer needed because the human ear cannot tell the direction of the lowest sound frequencies. A 7.1 setup usually looks like this:

Something like that is a sound-lover's dream. Sadly, a perfectly balanced setup can be very... pricey. Plus, for those like me who already have a motherboard (or sound card) that's 7.1 surround capable, it's a mockery of our dreams! Fortunately, 7.1 ability means it can run anything below it, so I hatched up an evil plan.

Using a Christmas gift card, I bought myself some cheap Altec Lansing USB-powered "portable" speakers.

Their space-saving design let me do the crazy thing of (duct) taping them to the back of my chair, for a simpler 4.0 sound setup that looks like this:

Not quite as impressive as the 7.1 setup, but it works great. It is much better than just using the front two speakers alone, for all uses. If your sound card and/or motherboard is capable of more than one audio output, I strongly recommend buying a cheap pair of speakers and setting it up behind you, then playing your favorite movie or game.

Now, a bit of a downside. When using such a setup, the sound card needs to know that it's supposed to be outputting to 4.0 or 5.1 or 7.1 or whatever channels. For example, if you're playing a YouTube music video, or listening to music on Pandora, you won't hear it come out all around. Instead, it will only use the main left and right speakers. To hear it all around, you need to look for how to enable an "upmix" or something of the sort.

In my case, on Windows, my sound is managed by the Realtek driver and utility. For me, the feature is called "speaker fill". However... It doesn't work. Long story short, the Realtek driver used to work on Windows XP... But does not work under Windows Vista or Windows 7. The rear speakers sound distorted, and have a 1/4 second delay to the front, making the sound better in plain stereo.

But on Linux? (Oh, here he goes again.) It works perfectly! I can listen to my Pandora or Grooveshark music in surround sound, and surround sound movies play just as well on Windows in VLC as in Ubuntu in VLC. Just saying!

Blog stability: the blog engine has just had a massive overhaul of how its threaded nature works, so it may be unstable. However, it appears much more stable than the last version that I was running, so here's to hoping for the best!