So, I want to have a surround sound system to use in my dorm next year at college. I've got two surround sound systems I'm allowed to take with me. One's a Dell 5.1 system, the other is a PTS 5.1 system. I've got no problem with the Dell working, it's the PTS I'm wondering about.

The PTS system is nicer (I think) than the Dell one, which is why I'm willing to figure it out.

Here's the link to the PTS manual: I can't post it yet? :x The system is a PT-5500S

From looking at the manual, it seems as though the 'surround' function won't work unless I plug things into the 5.1ch input (the lower three sets of input jacks on the back. Is that right? Or would I be able to buy an adapter that changes from a 3.5mm jack to the red and white plugs, plug it in to one of the 2.1 inputs, and have it play in 5.1?

Let me know if you need clarification or more info on anything. Also, if this is in the wrong forum, I'm sorry :(

For proper surround, you need at least an RCA cable for every channel OR an actual receiver that decodes dolby digital/DTS from a digital connection (which only needs a single cable).

If you're talking about PC speakers, you need three 1/8" to RCA cables, one for each sound channel. Or else a single cable to go from spdif to your receiver or whatever it is.

I don't know what hardware you actually have, but thats how you'd do it "generally speaking"

Okay, I'll be using one of three things to play music/sound. My laptop with one "Headphone" jack, my iPod dock which also has one "Headphone" jack, and my TV/Xbox 360, with just the two RCA cables.

You're saying I need three of these: http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2110469&cp=2032058.2032228.2032251&parentPage=family ?
Which is impossible, from what I understand... There's only one 3.5mm jack on my laptop/dock.

So the other route would be a reciever... The front of the big box thing says it's a reciever also... Here! I got the link for the manual for this thing. www.ptstitan.com/pdf/pt5500manual.pdf