surround sound confusion

J

jman15

Member
Alright, i am beyond confsued at the moment. I have been fiddling around with my surround sounds speakers (x-530 logitech speakers). These speakers have a front center speaker that is dedicated to voices. I also have an AudioExcel 6 channel 5.1 surround sound card (av51x).

Now if i understand surround sound correctly, there are certain sounds that should come out the rear speakers, others in the front and others in all 4 of the main speakers. The front center speaker is supposed to emit the voices on this one. Now i have 2 primary dvd playing programs on my computer. I have Nero Showtime and jetAudio.

When i play my dvd that supports dolby digital surround sound 5.1 (The Patriot) as my test subject in Jetaudio, the voices are VERY dim in all 4 speakers so you cannot understand them and front center speaker emits nothing. When i play them in Nero Showtime, the voices and sounds are all emitted through all four speakers loud enough so that you can hear the voices and sounds. However, once again, the front center speaker emits nothing. I have never, not once heard ANY noise from this speaker that is suposedly dedicated to voices. It seems to me that the front center channel in my amp/sub wofer is dead? And why the difference between players?

All my sound options on my computer are set to "5.1 surround sound." I also have everything ot do with sound set to C-media (the name of the drivers for my sound card). Could it possibly be a driver problem? Maybe my drivers didn't finish installing? I know there was an error while isntalling them and it said that the rear demo2 was not successfully completed. I also know when i click on the front center speaker in the testing utility that comes with them, it emits no sound there either.

Is there a way to fix this or are the speakers junked? Why can i not get the surround sound to work correctly and why no voices coming out of the front center?
 
hmm...I had that problem before, the thing with no sound in the center speaker. I had to "enable virtual 5.1" for the center to work. If you have the same C-Media thing as me the option should be in the audio adjustment (i blanked out on the name).
 
where can i find the audio adjustment? In a certain dvd playing program? Sound options in control settings?
 
make sure your DVD program is Dolby Digital compatible. Also how are you hooking the sound card to the speakers. You will need to run some sort of digital source from the card to the speakers. Either optical or digital coax. Your sound card drivers should include a set up that will emmit a test tone to each speaker for calibration.

You should get main vocals to the center channel and all ambiant sounds to the other channels. Background music is generally to the front left and right, unless its part of the scene (like a band in the movie) then it will be dependant on location. The surrounds play very limited sound. You shouldn't notice sound coming from them, you should just feel engulfed by sound from all over.
 
Also how are you hooking the sound card to the speakers. You will need to run some sort of digital source from the card to the speakers. Either optical or digital coax.
Click to expand...

How would he do this with Analog speakers?
 
if it's 5.1 it has to have a means of decoding the signal, unless it's component sound. Dolby digital and DTS are matrix encoded sound. It's a vector based digital signal. It's not just left channel and right channel like traditional analog. The only way to transmit it is digitally through either optical or digital coax. If the speakers are 5.1, there should be provision for surround channels, either by means of a seperate cord for main sound and surround sound, or a digital port of some kind. My 4.1 speakers have a digital coax port, and a set of component ports. If this system lacks these, then he won't be able to play anything Dolby Digital or DTS 5.1 rated.

Secondly, running digital signal requires a decoder. So if he is running digital signal from his computer to the speakers, there must be the appropriate decoder in the reciever/amp (imbeded in the sub). If he can run component sound, then the decoding is performed by the CPU and that's not as big an issue.
 
I wont pretend to know much about surround sound... You seem to know your stuff. But I know for a fact his speakers wont allow for a digital connection. Also every time I've used 5.1 surround sound options they work like a charm on optical settings. Like I said I don't know much about what it takes for surround sound to work but I know how to hook up a set of speakers to a sound card :). His speakers are analog at any rate.
 
i did some digging for you. You do need to run component audio. You have 3 cables, Green, black and orange. Your sound card needs to have component 5.1 audio out. So you should have 3 ports. One labled main, one labled surround and a third labled center. The main could also be labled front surround, or whatever.....It should be easy enough to figure out which channel is which. So check your connections 3 times and make sure they are right.

I've having trouble finding info about your Sound Card. It would be helpfull if you could tell us exactly what ports it has on the back. A picture would be helpfull as well.
 
Alright, well that was a lot of replies to read through and i have a few questions/more info to give.

Questions:
1. What is a digital coax and decoder? Where/how would i obtain one?
2. What dvd playing programs (preferably free) support dolby digital sound? I have Nero Showtime and JetAudio. I used to have WinDVD full version, but when i bought my new computer i lost the cd to win dvd and no longer have that.

Info:
My sound card is not a common card. However, as far as me setting it up, i simply plug the speakers into it. The speaker plugs are green, orange and black. The sound card has 5 possible places to plug these in. These plug ins are color coded. I just plugged the black plug into the black plug in. The two not being used ...i knwo at least one is for a microphone. All the speakers are connected to the amp/sub as well.
My card did come with a utility to test individual channels/speakers. No matter what speaker i have plugged into the front center port on my amp/sub, no sound is emitted when tested. So i am assuming the channel in the amp is bad?
 
Are all 3 plugs from the speakers plugged into the sound card? Find the documentation for your card and make verify which port is which and make sure they match the cord being plugged into it.

Don't worry about digital, you don't have it (speakers anyway). It's a way to transmit the data for all 5.1 speakers in a single cord.
 
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