The premise of cheap surround sound is great. Amazing sound quality, coming from all angles, for a low price. However, there are tons of terrible alternatives to cheap surround sound, including headphones, bad speakers, so called “5.1 sound cards” that are nothing but rubbish. Beware of false marketing when you’re looking for cheap surround sound, because it’s all over the place. Let’s talk about common culprits to avoid.
Doing a simple amazon search will reveal something called ”5.1 sound cards”. I have no idea why they’re called 5.1 sound cards, because really they are just little USB sticks that you can plug into a laptop or desktop computer and substitute for your nomral sound card/driver. Don’t be fooled by the “5.1″ in the product name, they aren’t surround, and aren’t manufactured by any trustworthy names. They just come with a jack for your headphones and a jack for a microphone. You can read many reviews on Amazon that they make hiss sounds, don’t work, are incompatible with Macs, are too quiet, etc. Don’t be fooled or waste your time even considering these because they have nothing to do with surround sound, they’re just cheap sound cards.
Moving on, there are surround sound headphones. These are actually manufactured to meet high sound quality standards and have great durability for a pair of headphones. They come in many different shapes, including over the ear headphones, and deliver a full sound quality designed to simulate surround sound. Although these are not substitutes for high quality surround sound speakers, or cheap surround sound, it’s a good solution for on the go ipod listening.
The real stuff you want is cheap surround sound. Don’t fall for anything with just 2 or 3 speakers that claims to be surround sound. Those aren’t the real thing. What you want is actually a set of a couple speakers- between 5 and 10, depending on the configuration. Popular configurations include 5.1 and 7.1 surround sound. The basic setup for 5.1 is this: center, front right, front left, back right, and back left speakers. The .1 refers to a sub-woofer that is placed for bass sound. If you don’t have multiple speakers, then it’s not actually surround sound.
The way surround sound works is that you place speakers all around you, and then you hear everything split up. Movies and music are either specifically put into surround sound, and the system decodes it and plays it , or the system takes stereo (2 channel) tracks, and figures out how to split it across 5.1, or 7.1, whatever you have.
The point of this website is to give you real surround sound except at good prices, without sacrificing quality. Cheap surround sound is all about getting the real deal for a good price, and we’ll talk more about different ways to do that later, different manufacturers, and avenues to buy your stuff from.
Be careful when shopping for cheap surround sound on Amazon that you don’t fall for fake product pictures. Sometimes something cheap will look like speakers, but what’s being sold is actually just wires or speaker covers or something. Always read the reviews to see if people think it’s a good product for not based on experience.
Believe it or not , there are actually popular manufacturers that sell surround sound systems at cheap prices, so you know that you’re getting quality. Trust me, no matter what your setup budget is, you’ll want to get surround sound, because the difference is amazing, and you’ll be able to get it. You’ll never go back once you’ve tried the real thing.