How does 'virtual' spatial audio from a soundbar compare to an actual surround setup? Someone built a mind-blowing scanner that lets you 'see' sound waves to demonstrate it, with the help of a stuffed guinea pig and a custom-built 8-channel amp | Tech Radar
Overview
News, deals, reviews, guides and more on the newest computing gadgets
Start exploring exclusive deals, expert advice and more
Details
Unlock and manage exclusive Techradar member rewards.
Unlock instant access to exclusive member features.
Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards.
How does 'virtual' spatial audio from a soundbar compare to an actual surround setup? Someone built a mind-blowing scanner that lets you 'see' sound waves to demonstrate it, with the help of a stuffed guinea pig and a custom-built 8-channel amp
This funny and fascinating video shows how your surround sound moves around
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.
You Tuber Plasmatron X creates a testing rig to visually map how spatial audio waves travel
It requires a lot of custom design, including building his own multi-channel amp
You can download the 3D printing files and code to make your own testing rig
Have you ever wished you could see the sound waves in your room? It turns out all you need is a guinea pig and a CAT: Computer Acoustic Tomography.
In a fascinating and fun video that enraptured the whole Tech Radar AV team and is well worth 11 minutes of your time, You Tuber Plasmatron X creates a testing rig that enables him to visualize how the sound waves move around the room.
That visualization can then be used to compare how different sonic setups perform, such as the difference between a soundbar and a full surround speaker setup.
Plasmatron X clearly doesn't take things too seriously. His experiment makes use of multiple soft toys, including a toy guinea pig to sit within the sound saves because its close enough to being a 4:1 scale of his own head, and at one point he suggests that his experiments with beam steering – using imperceptible delays to make sound appear as if it's coming from somewhere else – would have been more successful if he'd been firing beams out of his own rear end.
The guinea pig is centered in a multi-speaker setup that can replicate a perfectly positioned pair of stereo speakers, a soundbar, and a full 7.1 surround sound setup. You can easily see where the "sweet spot" appears in each setup, and how soundbars can make sound appear to be coming from speakers that aren't there.
‘Nothing can replace good room design’: how one award-winning home theater designer approaches custom installs
I heard two 'invisible' speakers that truly give you a 'wall of sound'
I custom-built a super-tidy TV setup — here are 5 mistakes to avoid
Science is happening (Image credit: Plasmatron X / You Tube)
The key takeaway here is that your room is one of the most important factors in the sound you hear: the combination of audio reflections from walls and ceilings, and sound wave absorption by soft furnishings such as your couch or curtains, will have a significant effect on what you hear.
That's particularly important if you've got a soundbar that uses acoustic trickery to create virtual speakers, beaming audio that's intended to bounce off the walls and ceiling of your room. The cosier your front room the more audio, it's likely to absorb.
This isn't revealing a big secret by any means — it's why many of the best soundbars have room calibration — but it's still fascinating, and the video's often very funny, especially when Plasmatron X is experimenting with building his own amp, and building soundbar waveguides with varying degrees of success.
If you fancy repeating the experiment with a guinea pig of your own, Plasmatron X has provided all the necessary code, 3D printing files and schematics for you to download right here.
Try our TV size and model finder! You tell it how far you sit from your TV, we'll tell you what size to buy based on viewing angle advice from image quality experts, and we'll recommend our three top TVs at that size for different prices.
Follow Tech Radar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.
Writer, broadcaster, musician and kitchen gadget obsessive Carrie Marshall has been writing about tech since 1998, contributing sage advice and odd opinions to all kinds of magazines and websites as well as writing more than twenty books. Her latest, a love letter to music titled Small Town Joy, is on sale now. She is the singer in spectacularly obscure Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
1'More than any other country in the world' - Ukraine wants to be the biggest drone and robot producer worldwide, outstripping China, Russia, and the US combined —Kyiv claims it could build more than 30 million units annually within years
2NYT Connections hints and answers for Wednesday, June 10 (game #1095)
3 Quordle hints and answers for Wednesday, June 10 (game #1598)
4NYT Strands hints and answers for Wednesday, June 10 (game #829)
5'AI tools could lead to nothing less than the death of astrophysics': Researchers predict bleak future for thousands who study black holes, galaxies, and supernovae
Tech Radar is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.
© Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036.
Key Takeaways
- News, deals, reviews, guides and more on the newest computing gadgets
- Start exploring exclusive deals, expert advice and more
- Unlock and manage exclusive Techradar member rewards
- Unlock instant access to exclusive member features
- Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards
