Anyone who’s ever watched a movie or played a 3D game in true 5.1 surround knows one thing: There’s no going back. 5.1 (or greater) is simply the way it’s meant to be heard. The problem is, 5.1 can be a little hard to do. Oh, it’s relatively simple technology and there are tons of very affordable 5.1 speaker systems out there. The problem is the actual setup. Our PCs are often stuffed into a corner or against a wall where there’s no good place to put a pair of satellites behind you.
Assuming you can solve that problem, there’s the issue of wiring: Do you have somewhere to run a pair of speaker wires back to where you’ve hidden away those rear speakers? The situation is the same for console gamers.
We’ve heard it called “the wife factor.” Technology fan, gamer, and movie lover Joe Sixpack wants to get a decent set of affordable 5.1 speakers for the living room or den, but is vetoed by Mrs. Sixpack when she realizes there will be ugly speaker wires strung all over the place, running across or around doorframes, under rugs, ducking behind bookshelves, etc.
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