5.1 Systems

[sj33]

I'm looking at getting a 5.1 setup, unfortunately I know nothing about them, and know no-one else who has one =/

I'm not quite sure where to start to be honest... right now, I have all my consoles, DVD Player etc running into an Argos switcher, which outputs the sound into the line-in socket on my PC, which outputs the sound through my old hi-fi. Very clumsy method, but it works. Can also have sound from both a games console and PC at once, which is useful.

So any new setup I have would have to be capable to taking inputs from multiple devices too, my current games consoles, DVD Player and future games consoles... would I have to get some huge switcher? I assume I could plug my current 2.0 devices into it too?

What systems do you guys use, and what would you recommend? I'm pretty flexible over price range... I'm getting this as a long term purchase, so I don't mind splashing out a bit, but I don't wanna get into silly money or anything....

May as well ask while I'm here, I'd have to get a new sound card for my PC to cope with all this... any real advatage to getting, say, an Audigy4 over a Live/Audigy/Audigy2?

[martTM]

7.1, mate - that's the way of the future.

Creative's stuff is always good and relatively cheap - you can get their PC 7.1 speakers and a decoder (to make the speakers work with regular non-PC stuff) for about ?250 together, plus you can run the PC and the decoder through the same switcher; it all comes together, so it's not much hassle.

Don't know much about sound cards though... sorry.

[Sane]

Personally I'd recommend just getting a separate receiver and a nice set of speakers. Depends on how much you're willing to spend of course though.

[sj33]

See that's how little I know about this stuff, I'm not sure if I should be buying a reciever and the like, or just souping up my PC to input/output 5.1 (or 7.1 =P). I'm basically gonna be throwing out the old hi-fi and replacing it with this new setup.

[martTM]

My way's cheaper, but you can never go wrong with separates - as long as you buy good ones, of course.

One copy of What Hi-Fi? and the Richer Sounds catalogue... that's what you need.

[Rossco]

Don't get 7.1 if its not that big a room. I was gonna go for 6.1 or 7.1 in my room but realised it would probably just not sound right since my room jsn't big at all.

[gIzzE]

Be careful with 7.1, I have gone back to 5.1 cause it suits my room better.

Join www.avforums.com and have a read through there, if you are considering buying a digital display in the future you want to look at an amp with audio delay as plasmas etc. tend to have about 30ms delay to process the picture, just something to consider if buying now.

[sj33]

Creative's stuff is always good and relatively cheap - you can get their PC 7.1 speakers and a decoder (to make the speakers work with regular non-PC stuff) for about ?250 together, plus you can run the PC and the decoder through the same switcher; it all comes together, so it's not much hassle.

That sounds cheap and easy. Do you have such a setup? Got a link to the hardware you have?

To be perfectly honest, I'm not even too sure what I'm supposed to be looking for, other than the fact that I want a 5.1 setup, that I can hook a load of things up to.

(I mean, do you have to get different types of decoder for DD, DTS etc?)

My room is tiny, so probably only big enough for 5.1... but should I get 7.1 for futureproofing?

[martTM]

I have these, this and, for a soundcard, this. It all works great, although I missed a crucial thing on the speakers when setting them up - the on/off switch is an additional part that I nearly threw away by accident.

The other advice here is right though - you might want to stick to 5.1 sound if your room's quite small, so these might be more your thing. I used to have them and they work a treat.

[sj33]

So lemme get this straight, I can plug the little Digital Out on the back of my PS2 or DVD Player into the decoder unit, and job done? The speakers plug into the decoder?
I assume I'll need a switcher for multiple devices?

[martTM]

Right - my PS2, Xbox and DVD player optical outs, as well as my GameCube and TV output phonos go into the decoder. Then, the decoder goes into the bass unit of the speakers, which then feeds out to all the individual satellites. The decoder has a switcher built in (optical 1, 2 and 3, analogue 1, 2 and 3) which you manually flick between depending on the input you're currently using. And it also has switches for the sound mode - DD, DTS, Neo 6.1 and so on. Plus (and this is for 7.1 only) it has an up-mix mode that mixes any 5.1 signal up to 7.1.

Hope that clears it up - if, for example, you bought exactly what I've got, you wouldn't need anything else (the decoder also comes with a independent switch box that allows you to plug in the PC soundcard AND the decoder into the speakers at the same time, meaning you can switch between which one you want to use). Same goes for the 5.1 option, I guess...

[sj33]

So the Decoder and Speakers are really completely independent of the PC? Cool. Sounds like the decoder does the same thing as all these AV Decoders people use.

I assume the formats I'll be able to use depends on the decoder? So I should be sure to get one that does everything, DD, DTS etc... I notice many of them don't support THX, DD Pro Logic etc...this is something I should be careful abour I guess.

(Does the one on your link support THX? I never knew THX was actually a 'format' in the common sense, but many AV Decoders seem to not support it).

[Super Monkey Balls]

THX is a certification, not a format.

I have 7 Anthony Gallo A'Diva's. Best thing I ever bought.

[sj33]

So in other words, having something marked with 'THX' doesn't really mean much? Good.

[sj33]

Sorry for the double post, but this decoder box.... I'm a little confused. I've seen many speaker setups just plug directly into the back of the DVD Player... so what actually does this decoder do?