[Ng Kai Teck]

Well lets say the sound quality,brand and model are the same for both home theater and home stereo setups.

I heard that playing a 2.0 stereo mp3 will sound worse in 5.1 home theater setup. Some claimed that it's because the sound waves in 5.1 will mess each other up as they cross paths before reaching to your ears. Wonder if this claim is true?

 

[FMW]

Well lets say the sound quality,brand and model are the same for both home theater and home stereo setups.

I heard that playing a 2.0 stereo mp3 will sound worse in 5.1 home theater setup. Some claimed that it's because the sound waves in 5.1 will mess each other up as they cross paths before reaching to your ears. Wonder if this claim is true?

Any home theater preamp can play two channel as well as 5 channel. It is a simple setting on the preamp.

 

[Ng Kai Teck]

Any home theater preamp can play two channel as well as 5 channel. It is a simple setting on the preamp.

So.. You mean the preamp can disable the 3 speakers and let the 2 front speakers work only?

 

[eljaycanuck]

I heard that playing a 2.0 stereo mp3 will sound worse in 5.1 home theater setup. Some claimed that it's because the sound waves in 5.1 will mess each other up as they cross paths before reaching to your ears. Wonder if this claim is true?

It's not, especially if you run your home theater receiver's auto-EQ program to optimize the set-up of all speakers (incl. sub(s)) relative to your main listening position. Stereo audio and multi-channel audio - and also stereo audio matrixed by the receiver into multi-channel audio - will sound just fine.

 

[Ng Kai Teck]

It's not, especially if you run your home theater receiver's auto-EQ program to optimize the set-up of all speakers (incl. sub(s)) relative to your main listening position. Stereo audio and multi-channel audio - and also stereo audio matrixed by the receiver into multi-channel audio - will sound just fine.

I do not have a receiver.. I'm planning to connect my computer to tv

 

[kiwi2]

So.. You mean the preamp can disable the 3 speakers and let the 2 front speakers work only?

Yep. If you are sending 2-channel music from a CD say, the AVR can play it 'straight', as in 2-channel out as well. Actually if you have subs it will output 2.1. You can still select a 'direct' mode and bypass the sub if you want and send full range to the speakers.

Or if you want you can choose to get the AVR to upmix it to 5.1.

 

[JHAz]

technically, if you send 2 channel sound to a system that is set up for 5.1 or 7.1 channel, nothing is actually disabled. There is just no content fed to the unused channels, so they are silent. On the flip side, as I look at it, at least, when I (almost always) expand stereo sound into 5.1 on my system, my receiver "invents" the center (a pretty straightforward thing) and the surrounds (more electronic guesswork is involved) and I will either like what the receiver invented or not. The preamp and amplification channels, as well as the speakers, are all just sitting there waiting to be used, if the thing is turned on. I spent some time making the invented surround work well for me for most music, and like the bigger soundfield. I have zero problems with those who prefer to hear the 2 channel stuff in its native format, or prefer more dramatic surround extraction than I do.

If you are feeding a soundbar or similar system from your TV, and you decide you actually want multichannel, you should be aware that some TVs just will not pass through some multichannel inputs (except for over-the-air). HDMI connections seem to be a particular problem (the TV tells the source device it's only a stereo playback system, then the source device will refuse to even send the multichannel signal to the TV. Not AIUI, an issue with optical or rca digital connections.

But if you are playing back through TV speakers, send the stereo feed and do nothign else, and it will work as you expect, AFAIK (subject to vagaries of different brands of equipment.)

 

[FMW]

So.. You mean the preamp can disable the 3 speakers and let the 2 front speakers work only?

Yes.

 

[FMW]

I do not have a receiver.. I'm planning to connect my computer to tv

A better plan is connect everything to the AV receiver.

 

[koturban]

Yep. If you are sending 2-channel music from a CD say, the AVR can play it 'straight', as in 2-channel out as well. Actually if you have subs it will output 2.1. You can still select a 'direct' mode and bypass the sub if you want and send full range to the speakers.

Or if you want you can choose to get the AVR to upmix it to 5.1.

Don't mean to nitpick here, but if the AVR has an "LFE only" setting, the AVR would do this automatically. OP should verify his configuration and features with his AVR and sub manual.

eta. just saw JHaz's post. What he said.

 

[jj_0001]

Perhaps if you meant "run a low-bit-rate MP3 through a surround decoder", well, yes, you're likely to hear some remarkable sounds that aren't terribly welcome.

Coding for surround is best done as independent channels, or at extremely high rates. Then again, since a "surround decoder" is a problem, psychoacousticly, in the first place, since it can't avoid messing up audible cues, I say go with discrete, and use lossless.

And consider WHO is saying that, ok?

 

[PrimeTime]

jj, what about higher bitrate (say >192 kb) mp3 and ambient delay DSP ("Fisher Hall," etc.)?

I can readily envision such DSP performed on a resampled DAC output, but what about the same effects processing in the native digital domain? Which has more unpredictable artifacts?