surround sound on car pc

**alexander** · 11-16-2008, 05:46 PM

I have a 2008 VW golf GT with the standard 8 speakers package and i am planning to put a car pc. I will remove the oem Head Unit and put a 7" inch lcd vga monitor.
My question is how i will manage to hear surround sound from all the car speakers when i will watching 5.1 dolby digital dvd movies?

Thanks in advance,
Alex

**joey7415963** · 11-17-2008, 08:04 AM

Hi,

I'm extremely new to this but from what i gather you are questioning how to get surround sound through your car speakers.

Firstly you need a surround sound card on your PC, you then attach the individual channel outputs to an amp and then to your speakers but from what I've read you will have to keep the gain low else you will blow the speakers.

Like I said I am new to this so if this doesn't help I am sorry.

**alexander** · 11-17-2008, 01:09 PM

Does anyone know if there are any decoders with built in amplifier?

**derek0606** · 11-17-2008, 05:12 PM

Originally Posted by joey7415963

Hi,

I'm extremely new to this but from what i gather you are questioning how to get surround sound through your car speakers.

Firstly you need a surround sound card on your PC, you then attach the individual channel outputs to an amp and then to your speakers but from what I've read you will have to keep the gain low else you will blow the speakers.

Like I said I am new to this so if this doesn't help I am sorry.

Wouldn't you need something like a audio control LC6 to utilize the factory system? I am assuming he wants to.

Originally Posted by alexander

Does anyone know if there are any decoders with built in amplifier?

decoder?

**Maheriano** · 11-17-2008, 05:44 PM

In order to get the sound from the DVD to your speakers you're going to have to keep the digital encoding the entire way. So to get it from the DVD to the sound card (on board) that's easy, it's automatic. Then you have to get it from your sound output to your amplifier if you're using one. This is where it's going to down convert the audio signal to analogue because I've never in my life heard of a car audio amplifier which takes digital audio in. Nor have I heard of a deck (let alone OEM) that will take a digital input.........and this is assuming you're using an aftermarket sound card with SPDIF or some other digital output.

Basically what I'm trying to tell you is if you hook up an RCA cable to your computer to send the sound out to your car, you're converting it to analogue sound because the RCA jacks on any sound card are incapable of handling a digital signal.

Here's an example: If you hook your DVD player at home to your receiver to play that awesome new movie in 5.1 Dolby Digital and you have it hooked up with red/white RCA cables then you're not watching it in Dolby Digital. You're watching it in Dolby Pro Logic, Dolby's analogue way of upconverting to emulate 5.1 sound but it's not true 5.1. The only way to play a DVD in Dolby Digital or DTS is to hook your DVD player to your receiver with either a coaxial RCA cable or a fiber optical cable. A lot of people make the mistake of buying a $1000 receiver for optimal sound and not spending $20 on proper audio cables.

So long story short, you can't.

**coldfission** · 11-17-2008, 06:03 PM

Originally Posted by joey7415963

Hi,

I'm extremely new to this but from what i gather you are questioning how to get surround sound through your car speakers.

Firstly you need a surround sound card on your PC, you then attach the individual channel outputs to an amp and then to your speakers but from what I've read you will have to keep the gain low else you will blow the speakers.

Like I said I am new to this so if this doesn't help I am sorry.

Yeah that would work.
If each channel has its own dedicated audio cable (6 channels of RCA cables) you will have no problem doing this.
Convert the "Front" audio jack to RCA and plug that into your front amp.
Convert the "Rear" audio jack to RCA and plug that into your rear amp. Convert the "Center" audio jack to RCA and plug that into your center amp.
Convert the "Subwoofer" audio jack to RCA and plug that into your sub amp.

If you had a 5 channel amp and sub amp you would be set.

Center and Subwoofer are each mono jacks, so that is 6 channels total.

But, do you really have a center speaker in your car? If not its going to sound weird. Volume will have to be controlled on the computer and gain knobs adjusted perfectly on each amp.

This is a great idea. i hate when people shoot down good ideas.

**alexander** · 11-17-2008, 06:20 PM

what about digital amplifiers? they don't have Optical Digital Inputs?

**coldfission** · 11-17-2008, 06:25 PM

just found this

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/car-...al-inputs.html

**alexander** · 11-17-2008, 06:27 PM

Originally Posted by Maheriano

In order to get the sound from the DVD to your speakers you're going to have to keep the digital encoding the entire way. So to get it from the DVD to the sound card (on board) that's easy, it's automatic. Then you have to get it from your sound output to your amplifier if you're using one. This is where it's going to down convert the audio signal to analogue because I've never in my life heard of a car audio amplifier which takes digital audio in. Nor have I heard of a deck (let alone OEM) that will take a digital input.........and this is assuming you're using an aftermarket sound card with SPDIF or some other digital output.

Basically what I'm trying to tell you is if you hook up an RCA cable to your computer to send the sound out to your car, you're converting it to analogue sound because the RCA jacks on any sound card are incapable of handling a digital signal.

Here's an example: If you hook your DVD player at home to your receiver to play that awesome new movie in 5.1 Dolby Digital and you have it hooked up with red/white RCA cables then you're not watching it in Dolby Digital. You're watching it in Dolby Pro Logic, Dolby's analogue way of upconverting to emulate 5.1 sound but it's not true 5.1. The only way to play a DVD in Dolby Digital or DTS is to hook your DVD player to your receiver with either a coaxial RCA cable or a fiber optical cable. A lot of people make the mistake of buying a $1000 receiver for optimal sound and not spending $20 on proper audio cables.

So long story short, you can't.

what about digital amplifiers? they don't have Optical Digital Inputs?