SRS WOW HD settings explained

[Guest dwallersv]

I looked all over the net for a good, detailed explanation of what the various settings in the SRS WOW HD cpl mean and change, and couldn't find any single complete source. Here's what I've cobbled together from several sources, as well as just figured out myself with experimentation. Hope this is helpful!

First some definitions:

• Monophonic component: The sound in each channel that is the same. This is the audio that sounds right in the middle of your head, or straight out in front of you. Both ears recieve the exact same signal, and if this was all that was going into your ears, you would be hearing mono sound, very flat and collapsed into the center of the left-right space in front of you.
  
• Stereophonic component: The difference signal, for each channel respectively, from the monophonic component. This is essentially what is unique to each channel (left and right) as compared to the other one. In other words, the sound you hear only in that ear. It is what gives stereo its "3D" effect, and fills the perceptual space around you with sound. For example, when watching a movie, and a car drives from left to right, there will be a left stereophonic component to start, playing only in the left ear, transitioning smoothly to a monophonic component (plays in both ears), then transitioning to a right stereophonic component.
  
  The SRS WOW algorithms first separate the mono and stereo components, and then manipulate and recombine them based on your settings. I've included the settings I use in () below
  
  WOW HD Settings page:
  • SRS 3D Effect: Controls the volume level of the stereophonic component of the source in each channel. (I set to 90%)
    
  • SRS Center Effect: Controls the volume level of the monophonic component of the source. (50%)
    
  • SRS Focus Effect: Boosts the higher-end frequencies for the monophonic component. (50%)
    
  • SRS Definition Effect: Boosts the higher-end frequencies for the stereophonic component. (20%)
    

  TruBass page:

  [*]SRS TruBass Level: Controls the gain for the bass boost. (I set to 100%)

  [*]SRS TruBass Speaker Size: Controls the cross-over frequency below which TruBass is boosting. TruBass is essentially a fancy low-pass filter with an amplifier. Setting this value too high will wash out the effect, because non-bass sound gets boosted too, defeating the idea of the processing. I set mine to 100Hz, and would no recommend going higher than 150Hz, or lower than 60Hz.

  [*]Input gain: Relative gain (loudness) of the source going in to the TruBass processor. SRS WOW takes this original sound, extracts the bass portion and modifies it according to the two parameters above, then mixes the result back in with the original. This setting determines the relative loudness of the original sound in that mixing process. (-3db)

  [*]Output gain: Similar to input gain, this controls the relative loudness of the boosted bass that gets mixed in with the original input. (0db)