Side speakers?

Eldartford,
the rear surround can be discrete in DTS i believe.
The Rear-right/rear-left setup uses the discrete 6th channel and feeds it to each rear, at the same time depending on track it will matrix the surround left with the surround rear and the surround right with the surround read to give a more diffuse sound field and better ambience affects.

i think....

Slappy...If the 6th channel, LFE, is being used for rear ambience, how do they do the exploding cars? All this stuff is very poorly explained.

naaa,,. by 6th channel i mean surround-rear channel, for 6.1 surround.
the .1 is the LFE. and the 6th is a track for rear effects.

Ill agree, this stuff is all poorly explained. Im pretty sure DTS can do 6.1 surround with descrete signals to all 6 speakers plus sub. When using the 7.1 it splits the 6th channel (rear channel) between the two rear speakers and will matrix these with the surrounds on each side to give the feel of 7 channels.

Its all a real pain in the ass if you ask me.

I have 5.1, thats it. My Denon 3805 will do 7.1, but due to the fact that i only ran 2 speaker cables beneath my floor when i was installing the hardwood im sticking with 5.1 instead of 6.1 or 7.1

Ive used 7.1 in the past in the house i was renting before i bought my own, and i thought it worked pretty well, but not well enough for me to string a cable to the other side of the room for the rear channel. You really need to have some room for 6.1 or 7.1. The biggest issue is you need space behind you for the rear speaker, at least 8 feet. if you dont have the space then using 6.1 or 7.1 will feel kinda gimicky and the whole effect kind of collapses. With my house the couch is pretty much against the rear wall. No room for anything more than 5.1 and i really dont feel like im missing a thing.

5.1 works great, and im sticking with that. :)

Maybe its a case of semantics here but here is my understanding. In the post Dolby surround era the 5.1 means mains , center , and surrounds { commonly refered to as rears }. The .1 signal sends the lfe to a dedicated sub. Im not getting into THX specs .The most respected theory was postulated by the team at Widescreen headed by Gary Reber and challenged the THX camp and has in reality been adopted by about everyone now. All monopole { preferably all speakers identical or at least the same in timbral character } , equidistant from the sweetspot using equal amplification and speaker cable legnths. The info was discrete. The coming of 7.1 refered to side "surround " speakers placed directly to the sides of the listener . Again equidistant if possible , if not , the delay feature could compensate somewhat. This configuration was at the heart of the lexicon processors and they led the way with some exciting white papers backing their position that a side image was a necessity.They still make some of the top theatre processors on the market . This signal sent to the " sides " was not discrete but matrixed. Enter DD EX and DTS ES . Theory was that the back of the soundstage needed filling and processors as well as software were trickling in a discrete single back channel that was to be placed at the same tweeter level as the others , equidistant once again with equal amplification and ideally be again , of the exact same model as the others. Ideal world indeed . I can not comment on what specifically commercial movie theatres do .

I still think that the best 6-channel setup for audio is the 2+2+2 scheme from Europe. High and Low Fronts, and two in the rear. No LFE channel is needed. If you want a subwoofer (or two, or three) get an electronic crossover and drive the SW from the Front signals. Actually I think that the two Highs could be the same signal, or one signal matrixed with the appropriate Low, and that would leave one channel free for Center, which I find very important. Unfortuately, no one has made recordings this way.

I suppose it will all shake down to a universal standard in about 25 years. I won't need to buy all new equipment, as I expect to be playing the harp by then.