Wiktionary
n. 1 A method of using multiple speakers to give the effect of being surrounded by sound. 2 (context uncountable English) The effect of being surrounded by sound.
Wikipedia
Surround sound is a technique for enriching the sound reproduction quality of an audio source with additional audio channels from speakers that surround the listener ( surround channels), providing sound from a 360° radius in the horizontal plane (2D) as opposed to "screen channels" ( centre, [front] left, and [front] right) originating only from the listener's forward arc.
Surround sound is characterized by a listener location or sweet spot where the audio effects work best, and presents a fixed or forward perspective of the sound field to the listener at this location. The technique enhances the perception of sound spatialization by exploiting sound localization; a listener's ability to identify the location or origin of a detected sound in direction and distance. Typically this is achieved by using multiple discrete audio channels routed to an array of loudspeakers.
There are various surround sound based formats and techniques, varying in reproduction and recording methods along with the number and positioning of additional channels.
Usage examples of "surround sound".
The scents around him became razor sharp, as if all along he'd been smelling in two dimensional black and white, and his senses had suddenly become three dimensional color, with surround sound.
For living in a safe house under Gaza eleven months of the year, it really wasn't badtwo leather couches, a glass coffee table, a top-of-the-line entertainment system (with TV, VCR, DVD with Dolby surround sound), bunk beds, an office chair and a desk built into the wall, a brand-new laptop, and three separate phone systems sitting side by side.
The entertainment center, manufactured by a joint venture between Eastman Kodak and Motorola, combined ultra-high definition with digital surround sound, and the screen took up an entire wall.
Nobody is running behind us, and Adam wrestles a console color television with surround sound and near-digital picture quality toward the door.
Marks on the wall indicated mountings for now-gone speakers for a total-surround sound system.
To watch one's enemies die in glorious color and surround sound was surely one of the greatest advantages of technology.