8 channel audio

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Cinematic 8-channel audio is a commercial surround sound standard that adds two speakers to the more conventional, and consumer-oriented 6-channel (5.1) audio set-up. 8-channel positional audio utilizes the standard front, center, and LFE (bass) speaker configuration, but in addition, includes two speakers positioned by the side and two by the backside. Using such a sound configuration, almost every angle of sound can, theoretically, be captured for a completely immersive experience.

But the 8-channel format has another, even more well-established tradition. The history of 'electronic music' includes the evolution of multi-channel playback in concert (arguably the real roots of 'surround sound' for cinema) and for a considerable time the 8-channel format was a de facto standard. This standardisation was fostered, in great measure, by the development of professional and semi-professional 8-track tape recorders - originally analog, but later manifesting in proprietary cassette formats by Alesis and Tascam. The speaker configuration, however, is much less traditional, and unlike cinematic reproduction systems, there is no hard-and-fast 'standard'.

In fact, composers took (and to some extent still take) considerable interest in experimenting with speaker layouts. In these experiments, the goal is not limited to creating 'realistic' playback of believably natural sonic environments. Rather, the goals are frequently simply to experience and understand the effect created by variations on source and imaging.