General Surround Sound Questions

[Steven Lareau]

Hi gang,

This place is filled with people that know their stuff, so I thought this would be the best place to ask about this.

DISCLAIMER
I do not own any Klipsch components, only in my wildest dreams, so these questions are a general question, concerning common systems, not about Klipsch goodies. For all I know, Klipsch may do this, but low end systems don't, which is why I mention this. I'm working with outdated garbage, and trying to make do with what I have.

Ok, the thing I wonder is this. I have a DVD player which has 5.1 surround sound capabilities, but the built in amp is weak. I have an AV receiver, with 5.1 capabilities. The DVD player has a pair of right and left line out jacks, and I'm wanting to run the DVD through the AV unit.

If I had a separate 5,1 surround sound reciever, and took the line out signal from the DVD player, and brought it into this secondary receiever, is the 5.1 information passed through to this piece? In other words, is all the surround sound information contained inside the left and right signal, which a surround sound amp can decode from just those two channel feeds and decode and play it properly?

If this is the case, can that same feed be sent through any stereo device, like a stereo cable switcher, and come out with everything intact when it hits the gear that decodes it, or will only AV type gear maintain the signal with all the parts intact?

I know this is bizarre, but I'm in the throes of hooking up all sorts of gear into one "system", and this info is going to be very helpful in the sequence of how things are going to feed from one piece to the next.

Thanks for any and all help on this, it's appreciated.

Steve

(one day I'm going to steal the La Scala's in my brother in laws house. He never plays them, and that's heresy in my book.)

[Youthman]

Hi Steve. Welcome to the forums! Don't worry. We don't mind non-Klipsch owners asking questions. We'll just have to charge you for any advice we give you. [] I'm no expert but hope I can offer some help for your situation.

If I had a separate 5,1 surround sound reciever, and took the line out signal from the DVD player, and brought it into this secondary receiever, is the 5.1 information passed through to this piece? In other words, is all the surround sound information contained inside the left and right signal, which a surround sound amp can decode from just those two channel feeds and decode and play it properly?

No, you will not be able to use the Red and White outputs from the DVD player if you wish to receive a true 5.1 surround. There are basically three ways to achieve what you are looking for, depending on what inputs the back of your DVD player and the back of your receiver has. Note: There is a fourth option HDMI but I'm assuming you have an older regular DVD player, not a Blu-Ray player.

Option1: Digital Coax.

This is a single cable that is able to carry the 5.1 information from your DVD player to your Receiver. On the image below showing the back of a DVD player, it shows "Coaxial". This is where you would plug the Digital Coax cable into.

Option 2: Toslink (Fiber Optic)

This also is a single cable that carries the 5.1 information through fiber optic. See image below. They call it "Optical".

Option 3: I can't remember what it is called (I think it's called Multi-Channel Output). Some DVD players (like the one shown below) have seperate outputs for each channel (Front, Center, Surrounds and Sub). For your 5.1 system, you would need three pairs of RCA cables. (Front Left, Front Right, Center, Left Surround, Right Surround and Sub). The back of your receiver would need to have six inputs for these.

Below is a different DVD Player that has the multi-channel output also. Little simpler than the image above.

I personally prefer to use either the Digital Coax or the Toslink, just because it's one wire instead of 6. Less mess back there.

Does that all make sense? What model DVD player do you have and what model receiver?

By the way, you can get good quality and inexpensive cables at www.monoprice.com or www.bluejeanscable.com. Don't get caught up in the Monster Cable hype. Cables are cables. Save your cash so you can get some Klipsch speakers. []

[Steven Lareau]

Thanks for the howdoo.
I googled for a lot of stuff lately, and I kept ending up in these forums over and over again, so who better to ask than the geeks that keep popping up.

You answered what I needed to know, although it's a drag, as it' shows I'm painted into a corner with this stuff I've got. No digital coax, no optical, no rows of shiny RCA outlets yearning to be connected.

It's a real cheezy Walmart Special DVD player, sub hundred bucks a few years ago. The reciever is a somewhat older (man, this stuff gets outdated too fast!) JVC RX518V receiver. My saving grace in all of this is a pair of JBL L112s that I bought brand new many years ago, and they can make anything sound decent. I refoamed the surround recently, and they sound as good as the first day I brought them home. Of course, I'm kicking myself for selling off all my good audio gear before a move 11 years ago, but...

What I had hoped to do was to run the DVD straight to the TV, then run audio cables out of the JVC TV, and loop that into the JVC receiver with the surround sound. My kingdom for a patch bay.

I've got a set of JVC surround speakers and powered sub, so that helps a bit. The JVC speakers replaced the cheesy freebies that came with the cheesy DVD player. I'm driving the JBL L112s with a Mitsubishi stereo, which actually drives the JBLs rather nicely.

So yeah, it's an random family sampler platter of pieces, and just trying to see what might be the best way to handle this stuff. I just tonight pulled the tv console stand thingie from the wall, so tomorrow everything gets yanked out, diagram what I've got in the way of input and output, and start drawing squiggly lines from one component to the other while consuming just enough beer to dull the headache I'll surely have at this point. At least I have good beer, so that's a start.

So it looks like I'll just use the cheezy DVD surround system with the JVC speakers, then pump the output from the TV out into the stereo JBL system with the powered sub and pretend it's all sorts of purty.

So yeah, I tracked with what you tossed my way, it's what I expected the answer to be, but hey, a guy can always hope to be wrong sometimes. Just don't mention that to my wife, mmkay?

Thanks for the feedback, it's greatly appreciated.

Steve

[Youthman]

Ok, you actually have an older receiver than I thought. It's been a long time since I've dealt with a Pro Logic (Pre-Dolby Digital) receiver. In that case, you would not have a digital coax, a toslink nor multichannel inputs. If I remember correctly, pro-logic decoders used only two channels to create a 5.1 channel mix. Center was composed of info from Left and Right speaker etc. In that case, I would just connect your DVD player via regular RCA (red and white cable). Connect your TV out (red and white) to any input on the receiver (Tape, CD etc). Doesn't matter which you choose, they are simply labels to help you know what you have connected to that input. Then your receiver will create a pro-logic 5 channel surround for you. I would highly recommend looking for a Dolby Digital receiver (even a used older model). Would be less than $100.00. Dolby Digital provides you with 5.1 separate channels as opposed to using existing channels to make up the information for another channel. In prologic, the rear left and right speaker contain the same information. So if a boomerang was thrown around the room, you would hear it pan from left, to center, to right and then both rears would sound together and then back to the front. With Dolby Digital (DD), you would hear each individual speaker independently. Also, DD has a dedicated channel just for the subwoofer ( the .1 in 5.1). Of course, if you get a DD receiver, you will need to get a DVD player that has one of the three options (Digital Coax, Toslink or Multi-Channel Output) that I mentioned in my earlier post.

Edit...I found this article on Pro-Logic. They use 4 channels (Left, Right, Center and Surround). I was close. LOL.

[askbob1]

as i was in the old school pro-logic only receiver just a couple years ago, do yourself a huge favor and first get a reciever that does dolby digital/dts 5.1. even with my old dcm speakers, this was a huge leap in sound quality. i didn't know what i was missing.

[DU73]

as i was in the old school pro-logic only receiver just a couple years ago, do yourself a huge favor and first get a reciever that does dolby digital/dts 5.1. even with my old dcm speakers, this was a huge leap in sound quality. i didn't know what i was missing.

Absolutely