What is the simple definition of LFE?
 

just wanted to know simply what this means in the sounds world. thanks.

If your stereo set has bass and treble setting, LFE is for the bass.

I know that is dumbing the terms down but I guess that it's as simple as it can get.

LFE stands for Low Frequency Encoding which is when a Dolby Digital or DTS 5.1 soundtrack encodes the bass or lower frequencies to their own channel. The 5 in the 5.1 is the fronts, rears, and center speaker while the .1 is the LFE channel.

so that means if the LFE ensignia comes on on my receiver, the DVD has a LFE track encoded which basically means there will be good bass coming through?

Well, "good" bass depends on your subwoofer settings, the room acoustics and how the DVD was mastered.

There are several threads in the main forum talking about which discs have great bass. Toss one of those in and give it a listen.

LFE stands for Low Frequency Effects. (Not "...Encoding.")

The LFE channel is the ".1" channel encoded in a multichannel signal. It is most often used as its name implies: for the low-frequency components of sound effects like explosions.

The LFE channel is rarely used for musical content.

The LFE channel is intended to be reproduced by a subwoofer, which is a transducer that reproduces frequencies lower than those normally reproduced by a woofer.

Having defined the content of the LFE as contained in program material, the matter of how a given audio system handles the LFE and other low frequencies is an entirely different discussion.

The subwoofer output of a digital decoder may carry only the LFE channel (if the sub is flagged as "present," and all the other channels' speakers are flagged as "large").

More commonly, the subwoofer output carries both the LFE information and some of the bass frequencies from some or all of the 5+ full-range channels. Exactly which frequencies, and from which channels, is determined by the large/small settings on the decoder, along with the selected crossover frequency.

The most important distinction in understanding the LFE is that the LFE in a digital surround soundtrack is distinct from the bass information contained in the other, full-range channels. It is only during decoding, dependent on the decoder settings, that bass from other channels gets added to the sound going to the sub.

RichC