Five point one is a term used to describe digital surround sound audio formats such as DTS and Dolby Digital. The five stands for five discrete channels of sound information. These channels are full range and fully digital – left front, front center, right front, right rear or surround, left rear or surround. The point one is a sixth channel designated for a subwoofer. This LFE (Low Frequency Effects) channel handles the lowest bass in recorded digital audio from 80 Hz down. A full 5.1 digital audio system can provide stunning realism and improved surround sound audio quality compared to matrixed or derived surround sound (which encodes multiple channels of information into two channels and then decodes the multiple channels when played back – in this format there are a maximum of four channels where the surround channel is a single, mono channel that is limited in frequency range and the center channel is also limited in its bass response).