Stereo from a 5.1 setup (how?)

rubberduck · 29 May 2008 at 00:35

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?

rubberduck · 29 May 2008 at 01:32

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?

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?

rubberduck · 29 May 2008 at 11:31

AbsenceJam said:
Change the mode on your receiver....

Tried this but my amp will not allow me to change modes when 'external in' in selected. Maybe this is the problem and I shouldn't have connected my computer to the external in. Any ideas?

This is what the back of my amp looks like.

http://www.wvip.co.uk/images/hardware/Amplifiers/Denon/DenonAVR-3803_rear.jpg

rubberduck · 29 May 2008 at 13:44

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???

rubberduck · 29 May 2008 at 14:16

Uriel said:
And how is that less complicated from changing from 6 to 2 speakers in Windows?

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?

rubberduck · 29 May 2008 at 14:59

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.

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?