The joys of 5.1

Wow. Surround sound is the sex.

So I finally got me a surround sound speaker system yesterday, and boy does it sound good, especially since I've been listening to music on my iBook's speakers for the past year. Named the escXite from the audio-masters at JBL it has five channels plus base, so 5.1, and is quite simply amazing. Apple Store sells it for £200, I eBayed it for £100, and it was worth every penny.

It gets better though. I've paired it up with Apple's AirPort Express for wireless music playing goodness. Like the speakers, AirTunes is spiffingly amazing. I pick a song in iTunes, it leaps over to our router, then jumps back to the AirPort Express, slithers down a fibre and then pours out the speakers. Right now Ray Charles is keeping me entertained, and he sounds better than I've ever heard. Every word crisp, every note rich, every little detail perfectly evident. Au revoir stereo iBook speakers.

This all being said, there are still some issues. Most annoyingly is the occasional cut out in the music because of wireless latency and network traffic. The music is routed over the wireless network and is therefore subject to the conditions which that introduces. We have a type G wireless network, but I've 'downgraded' it to type B which seems to be more reliable for my setup. I'm getting fewer drop-outs, but still, three-second drop-outs are there every now and again. It's a shame the extensive AirPort Express/iTunes options don't let you increase the buffer size.

The centre channel speaker's cable isn't long enough for where I want to put it, but that doesn't matter too much since it isn't actually used. My iTunes music (taken from CDs and iTMS) is stereo encoded, the audio processor rips the music up into 4.1 channels and doesn't actually make use of the centre speaker. The centre speaker is only used for stuff encoded in DTS or Dolby.

The remote is crap. Talk about IR being line of sight. You have to have the remote perfectly pointed at the IR sensor for it to work. A few degrees out of line and noting happens. It really is terrible considering how fantastic the rest of the package is. I've emailed JBL in the hope that it's maybe just a problem with my particular remote, and I could get a replacement.

Otherwise though all is good. Wireless surround sound is bliss.

[UPDATE] JBL replied swiftly to my email and said that I am not experiencing normal behaviour with the remote. Apparently I should try a new battery, which I will, one day.