[SOLVED] Playing music from an RCA output CD player on a 5.1 surround system ?

[edikecske]

Hello, I recently bought a Sony DE475 surround receiver with a set of speakers. I want to buy a CD player to play my music CDs on it, but most of the older players only has RCA stereo output, rarely Toslink. If I connect it to the CD stereo / Toslink input on my receiver, can I change the settings on it to play the music on all speakers? Sorry if it is a dumb question, I am new into this.
Thanks in advance!

 

[kerberos_20]

CD is stereo, no diff between tosslink or RCA, if you want it to play on all speakers, then receivers has to support stereo on all channels

 

[edikecske]

I went through the receiver's specs and it has Dolby Digital, DTS, and Dolby Pro Logic decoding, and also has an A.F.D. mode that I can turn on. I do not know much about these things, would it work?

 

[Alabalcho]

Connect any stereo output signal to your receiver (phone, tablet, laptop), and check what you'll hear. You'll need a 3.5mm-to-RCA cable for this.

 

[edikecske]

Connect any stereo output signal to your receiver (phone, tablet, laptop), and check what you'll hear. You'll need a 3.5mm-to-RCA cable for this.

I already did that, the receiver is not able to convert the stereo signal into surround. My plan is to buy a 5.1 decoder, plug my PC and CD player into it, and then connect the decoder’s multi channel output to my receiver.

 

[Alabalcho]

I already did that, the receiver is not able to convert the stereo signal into surround.

There is no surround info in a stereo signal, and "5.1 decoder" will not help - these devices usually accept digital signal (SPDIF), and convert it to five-plus-one analogue signals.

Check your receiver' audio settings - there should be a way to make it play your stereo signal on all channels.

 

[dwd999]

Perhaps an alternative would be to get an rca cable splitter to split each channel's signal and effectively double it so that you would hear each channel on the front and back speakers. That's the best you could do with stereo cd source material.

 

[Unolocogringo]

It appears your amp does not support all channel stereo.
But you can get surround effect from it by using virtual surround .
https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/res/manuals/W001/W0010562M.pdf

 

[hang-the-9]

I already did that, the receiver is not able to convert the stereo signal into surround. My plan is to buy a 5.1 decoder, plug my PC and CD player into it, and then connect the decoder’s multi channel output to my receiver.

If a piece of music is recorded in stereo, making it play on all the speakers would pretty much ruin the intended sound the producer and artist intended you to hear. Unless you are just there for the wall of sound, then I guess it does not matter much.

 

[kerberos_20]

If a piece of music is recorded in stereo, making it play on all the speakers would pretty much ruin the intended sound the producer and artist intended you to hear. Unless you are just there for the wall of sound, then I guess it does not matter much.

that depends on your playback equipment, if your speaker placement is correct, than its about same as hearing it from headphones + you get vibrations which headphones lacks 🙂

 

[Unolocogringo]

If you play with the surround volume settings you can get an ok sound. But nothing like true 4 or 6 speaker stereo with sub/subs.
So much gets sent to the center channel that the imaging is lost.

 

[hang-the-9]

that depends on your playback equipment, if your speaker placement is correct, than its about same as hearing it from headphones + you get vibrations which headphones lacks

You are going to get front L/R signal coming in from the rear, it may not be noticeable but I don't know of any audiophile setup that uses surround speakers for imaging when playing stereo sources. It's just not worth it for proper sound to force a stereo mix into 4 speakers aside from getting a simple "wall of sound". You need something actually mixed in surround sound to want to have rear speakers working, it's really not an issue when they don't, unless they should be working like in a movie.