emvath79 wrote:Hello,
I am finally making a little bit of money and would like to put together a decent sound system / home theater (my idea of decent may be lower than yours
I am planning on buying some speakers and a receiver but am a bit confused on how the channels work. I will be doing a lot of music listening and movies / tv / games will be second priority. If I buy a set of speakers in 5.1 or 7.1 how are they going to sound when I pipe my stereo music into it? Basically (I think) I don't want all the music trying to be forced out of the center channel instead of having nice stereo seperation. Are receivers smart enough to take the stereo input and not try and force it through the center? I'd like it to play in 2.1 or 4.1 I would think. I guess I really just don't know what I'm doing.
Hi there! Many modern receivers have various virtual surround sound modes, such as "DTS NEO:6" or "Dolby Pro Logic II", which can use the 2-channel stereo sources and "spread" them across all your 5.1 or 7.1 channels. You can control the various aspects of these modes, such as put more emphasis on center channel or on surround channels, etc. You can also just set the playback of your stereo source to just two front speakers and subwoofer (2.1) without using any other speakers or any virtual surround sound modes.
Anyway, you should visit the more dedicated audio and home theater forums, you'll get any questions like these answered faster and in more details:
http://www.avsforum.com/f/88/audioYou should also visit the manufacturer's website (for example
http://usa.yamaha.com/products/audio-vi ... ist=within), select a particular receiver based on your acceptable price range and then download its digital manual and see which features it has and how exactly they can work.
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