Stereo from a 5.1 setup (how?)

rubberduck

rubberduck

rubberduck

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8 Feb 2004
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Hi

I have my sound card outputting via analogue (3 stereo to RCA leads) to my AV receiver and all is well. However when I try to play an mp3 or such like it plays through the surround and centre speakers too. What do I need to change so that I only get stereo playback?

Obviously I could just change my speaker setup from 6 to 2 channel but there must be an easier way?
 
you are still getting stereo , just through 6 speakers. there is still only 2 channels.

i would think that changing your setup from 6 to 2 is easy enough, no?
 
Dogoid said:
you are still getting stereo , just through 6 speakers. there is still only 2 channels.

i would think that changing your setup from 6 to 2 is easy enough, no?
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OK but I only want music playback it to come out of the left and right front speakers as is normal for stero playback. Changing my speaker setup as you suggest is of course very easy but I will then have to change it back if I want to watch a movie that will take advantage of the centre and surrounds. Surely there is an easier way to set this up than having to constantly change the speaker setup?
 
buy a simple 4 channel mixer that sits in between the computer and the av receiver .

out of the 4 stereo mixer channels you are going to use 3 of them , when listening to mp3's just mute the other 2 or solo the front 2 speakers.
 
What's your soundcard?

You should be able to select 2 channel output on the PC and shut the other channels up.
 
Just had an idea...

If I use a couple of RCA splitters I could have the front speakers going in to 2 inputs on the amp, 1 being the front left and right channels of the 'ext in' while the other could go to something like 'cd in'

I could then obtain audio playback from just the two speakers by switching the amp to 'cd in' and get the the full 5 speakers by using 'ext in'.


Would be interested if there is a windows based solution to this however. Surely there must be something???
 
Uriel said:
And how is that less complicated from changing from 6 to 2 speakers in Windows?
Click to expand...

Because it allows me to do it with one button press as oppose to what you suggest which is.

start -> settings -> control panel -> advanced -> speaker setup -> apply

Admittedly this only takes a few seconds but it will get a bit annoying after a while. Any way to set up a keyboard shortcut to do this?
 
It's why I asked what soundcard you have. Takes 2 button presses on both the X-Fi in my main rig and the Club3D Theatron (based on C-Media chipset) in my 2nd.
 
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Uriel said:
It's why I asked what soundcard you have. Takes 2 button presses on both the X-Fi in my main rig and the Club3D Theatron (based on C-Media chipset) in my 2nd.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply.

Unfortunately I'm using onboard sound (easy now!) so that probably explains why the process can't be made simpler.

I have been thinking about buying a dedicated sound card for a while now. Any suggestions?
 
Ordinarily I'd recommend an Asus Xonar DX, or D2 (depending on whether you have PCI or PCI-E slots spare) but I've no idea how easy it is to change speaker modes. Maybe someone else can comment?

Edit: The X-Fi wasn't 2 button presses by default. I set up a the windows toolbar to have quick launch and added a shortcut to the soundcard/speaker set-up. Works in both XP and Vista. You could do something similar.
 
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