Hi, I am a total sound neophyte. I have 5.1 Altec Lansing speakers and there's a switch on the back that either plays sound in native 6-channel mode or uses a 2/4 channel input to electronically convert to 5.1 output, by frequency maybe.

Anyways, I have a 5.1 sound card, Audigy LS, and up until now, I somehow stupidly overlooked the fact that a 2-channel stereo source cannot (and here, please correct me if I'm wrong) be output to 5.1 speakers without either a software conversion or hardware conversion, as I just described my speakers do.

Something called CMSS in my soundcard's software allows me to do that, so now my question is: which is better, to play 2-channel sound and convert it via soundcard software/drivers to 5.1 speakers (set to 6-channel output), or play stuff back as-is and make the speakers do the channel change?

I have to add that 5.1-recorder sources play indeed in 5.1 without any adjustment, so this only pertains to standard 2-channel stereo. I would appreciate if one of you guys gave me some advice on this.

I'm not completely sure what you are getting at, it's probably me but i found it tricky to understand what you were describing.

However I can say that for 2 channels signals to go into 5.1. you definately need to put it through a 5.1 coder and obtain the seperate feeds.

I moved this into the correct thread.
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Recording Studio Suntans