Ok, I have a technical problem. My surround sound set-up in my living room is a cheapo Logitech 6 speaker system 〈4 satellites, 1 center, 1 sub〉. It may be cheap but it sounds terrific in the relatively small room and I’ve got it mounted from the ceiling so it even looks pretty professional. I have a problem though. I would like to be able to experience it’s surround sound capabilities which it clearly claims on the box. The problem is that the system is set up to plug into a computer sound card so it has these three 3.5mm stereo headphone plugs for input instead of an optical or digital coax input. So my only option for getting surround is just plugging in a left and right RCA cable into an RCA to 3.5mm adapter and letting the system fake surround sound. Sometimes it fakes it correctly and you will actually hear things going on behind you and sometimes it’s just a really nice wide stereo separation. I want REAL surround sound out of it though.

So, I come to my question after all that background info. Is there any way to use the optical or digital audio out from my dvd player and convert it to 3 separate stereo signals to correspond to each of the stereo inputs on my surround receiver? I guess one would be front left/back left, one would be front right/back right, and one center/subwoofer.

Does this make sense? Can it be done? Please help me.

FutureMan

Anyone?

I went to Radio Shack and the guy couldn’t comprehend what I was trying to do, so I looked around and couldn’t find anything that looked like it would work…there’s got to be a way to do it though right?

FutureMan

i have the z-640 system. i bought a sound card that does up to 6.1. it has all the jacks to accomodate the three plugs(front/rear/center i believe). i get pretty decent surround sound when playing video games and watching movies.

I don’t think that you can get a converter for those three jacks to standard RCA jacks for your home theater. You would need some kind of go-between, like a computer. Either way, the result might be lossy sound.

I’m thinking that the system you’re describing has a central receiver, right? You can purchase DTS stereo receivers for fairly good prices, and just use the speakers you already have, instead of the one that they came with. Let me know what you think about that.

[quote author=“Tighr”]I don’t think that you can get a converter for those three jacks to standard RCA jacks for your home theater. You would need some kind of go-between, like a computer. Either way, the result might be lossy sound.

I’m thinking that the system you’re describing has a central receiver, right? You can purchase DTS stereo receivers for fairly good prices, and just use the speakers you already have, instead of the one that they came with. Let me know what you think about that.

That’s not a bad idea…I’m going to look into that…thanks Tighr.

FutureMan

No problem, i’m here to help!

If you are using it in your front room, I’d recommend the Creative DDTS-100. It’s about $100 but it accepts up to three optical, one digital coax, and three RCA jacks. Then your surround sound will be correct.

http://www.valleycomputer.net/prod/lg/DDTS100.jpg

I’m using it in my front room with my Klipsch 5.1 Ultras and it works awesome hooked up to my VCR (using RCA) DVD and Xbox (both using optical).

Here’s a link to it

Hold up, what does the device above do exactly? If I already have a 5.1 setup, but am running out of digital audio ports, can I incorporate this into my setup? Or does this only work in a situation where there is no receiver?

I dont want to replace my damn receiver :(

it basically allows you to hook up PC Speakers to a home entertainment theater. It has the three jacks for PC Speakers and then a bunch of inputs to be used with those devices you have. I.e. DVD player, VCR, Xbox/PS2, etc.

It’s basically if you don’t have a reciever and have PC Speakers that you want to use as home theater speakers. It also comes with an adapter to hook it to your computer as well as using all the other inputs. Awesome little device.

If you have a reciever then this wouldn’t be something you need. The speakers hook directly to the device. It’s basically the reciever