Z-5500s not playing 5.1

[Sheninat0r]

So, I hooked up my new Z-5500s to my new[er] HTPC, with a Gigabyte GA-M69GM-S2H, AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+, 2GB cheap Wintec RAM, Auzentech X-Plosion, and Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1800 on Vista Ultimate x86. In the Control Panel, each speaker works fine when i click to test it, but in Windows Media Center, I can't make it play 5.1 audio. Even after I go to "set up my speakers" and make it play 5.1 [all the speakers work when I test them in WMC too], whenever I try to play a DVD or music the sound only comes out of the sub, left front, and left right speakers. Is there something I'm missing here to make my 5.1 speakers actually 5.1?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

For music, 2.1 is the expected output. For movies, do you have a 5.1 soundtrack selected, and are you waiting until you get into the movie to see if the speakers work? (vs. just the menu)

 

[FP]

^-- What he said.

Music will only play out of 2.1 unless you use one of the simulated surround options on the Z-5500s. Hit the 'effect' button on the remote until you see "Stereo x2", or one of the "PLII" effects show up on the pod.

 

[Sheninat0r]

Ah... I guess that would explain it. I'll try some of the effects out later tonight.

 

[Modelworks]

That card has great 5.1 support, just double check the settings in the sound cards control panel.

With the xplosion card you can set it to output dolby digital live, that will encode any 2.1 channel source into 5.1 spdif for non 5.1 sound sources.

 

[Sheninat0r]

Well, I got 5.1 by using the speakers' control panel, but I'm interested in what Modelworks said - how do I get my sound card to output everything in 5.1? I have the drivers that came with my sound card installed.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: Sheninat0r
Well, I got 5.1 by using the speakers' control panel, but I'm interested in what Modelworks said - how do I get my sound card to output everything in 5.1? I have the drivers that came with my sound card installed.

How do you have the speakers connected to the card now?

Note that 5.1 is not always the better way to go. I have a 7.1 setup and still listen to music in 2.1 mode to preserve soundstage / imaging / etc.

Also, if something is already encoded in DD / DTS, you'd want to just leave that alone rather than messing with it further.

For sources like games though, the benefit of the xplosion is that you can get surround sound through a digital connection with the encoding capabilities.

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...1=digital+audio+thread