How do I…

Build a surround system

Choose where the cables go, the displays and a layout, what goes in each position and the wiring, then place the whole system in one step.

Where to find it: Palette › Equipment › Surround Sound › Builder

The Surround builder asks four things in order, each already answered, then offers to save them as a preset. What will be placed, beside every step (a bar on a phone), shows what you have chosen so far, with the cables and pairs once you reach Wiring. Next: Type and the like, and Back, move between steps; a finished one opens again with a click.

1. Rack: where every cable of the system goes, the displays' too. Choose a rack already on the project, or a New local rack, whose backbone to the main rack you can change as in Properties — New main rack when the project has none. Not now leaves the cables Not assigned, as for an icon placed before there is any rack. If racks are locked, the step says so until you unlock them in Equipment or choose an existing rack.
2. Displays & layout: tick any of TV, Projector and Video wall; click a tile to open its settings, one at a time. Slide or type the TV size. Each display's cables start on your defaults and change as in Properties: Add, a type, a quantity, where it goes, or Remove cable from a row's menu. A projector's screen starts Fixed, with no cables; choose Motorized for its cables and Trigger to projector, or No screen. Then pick a layout, 3.1 to 9.2.4, or set Main, Subwoofers and Heights under Or count them. Main is the 5 in 5.1.4.
3. Type: for Fronts, Separate speakers, One LCR soundbar or C soundbar + speakers. Any row may be In-wall, In-ceiling, On-wall or Floor; a subwoofer stands in the room, in a wall or in the ceiling. The button after a row's type picks its model: an in-ceiling speaker's 6 or 8 inch, or an invisible one. Each row is Passive or Powered, or Set all at once. A sub in the room starts powered, in a wall or ceiling passive. Set left and right apart gives a pair's two sides a type each. Rough in places the role placeholders instead.
4. Wiring: only what your answers call for. Passive speakers take a gauge and Left + right: one 4-conductor for a pair, or each on its own. Powered speakers take Cat6 to each, never chained, or Wireless; powered subs coax, Cat6 or Wireless. The cable types follow your workspace's standard.

Where each speaker stands follows Dolby's guidance for the room you drag: in-wall fronts behind a screen or beside a TV, in-ceiling ones just in front of it, surrounds at the sides, rears on the back wall, heights in line with the fronts, subs by a wall. A room too small is refused.

Place on plan closes the builder; the placing card at the foot of the drawing asks for the rest: Drag a room or tap its first corner, then Choose the display’s front wall. With a new rack, Click where the new local rack goes comes last. Cancel or Esc places nothing. Everything is one undo step. Its left and right roles start as pairs, unless Wiring chose each speaker on its own.

Each speaker is its real type, labelled by its role (FL, SW1). Where an answer differs from your cabling defaults, such as another gauge or a display's changed cables, the icon keeps its own cables, marked changed. A wireless speaker's Cables read No cable · wireless.

Your answers stay while the drawing is open. To change a placed system's wiring afterwards, see wire speakers as pairs and change an icon's cables.