Thread: 5.1 Surround in the car

pdub you've hit the nail on the head. Thanks!

antimatter--
I know that 5.1 has been posted to death on this forum, but despite all the threads I read I never came across something about using the analog outs on an audigy or any sound card for that matter -- all the solutions you guys discussed used external processors/decoders. Also, for my situation, I was going to use the PCI card, not the USB card, and I don't have a whole host of USB devices, not even a cd-rom or dvd drive -- I'm going to be storing all my dvd movies in ISO format on the hard drive of the Carputer so that I don't have to carry DVD's around. My budget is anything up to $1500 US for decoder/amp and hopefully speakers too (though I'm willing to spend more if necessary for quality.)
Lastly, does the upmixing from Pro Logic make a big enough audible difference that it's worth having?
Thanks.

Originally Posted by Vijindr

pdub you've hit the nail on the head. Thanks!

Ok, i was beginning to get confused by reading all of the replies. Let me know how it works out and how it sounds. I wont have mine in for weeks. Still building my new system, but it is near completion.

i tried to make a picture..


hopefully it explains everything..

Pdub was right, the 3 jacks on teh back of the audigy card each have two channels. Jack 1=subwoofer/center, jack 2=rear l/r, jack 3=front l/r. Jack 3 would be the same basic jack as you have for normal stereo headphones, one jack, two signals, left and right. Same for jack 2. Jack 1, two signals, center and sub. You should be able to do 5.1 surround sound with just this card, just like you would if you had the same card in your home computer and surround sound computer speakers.

Great diagram. I have not read all the posts on this thread so I may be repeating but the output from the the soundcards analog outs are line level female stereo 1/8" mini jacks and the amp is line level rca jacks.

To run to your sound card to your amp you need a male stereo 1/8" mini jack to 2 rca converter cable these can be purchased at any cable place on the web or radio shack. Monster cable probably is the best and what I used in my setup. http://www.monstercable.com/home_av/...s/rca-mini.asp

Also to run full 5.1 surround (ie 6 channels with center channel) You will probably need two separate amplifiers as most amps right now are 5 channels. I understand that Audiobahn just released a 5.1 surround amp (6 channel amp) so more may be coming soon. I personal elected to bypass the center channel and just use a Kicker 5 channel amp.

All surround sound cards output the channels in analog and most passthru the dolby digital via spdif in case for instance you want to use your home theater receiver to decode instead. For the CarPC setup is is probably best for most to go the route I mentioned.

If you have any more questions feel free to PM me.

Good luck.

moltensilver

@moltensilver.
thanxs for the addon..

Vijindr, you're missing one of my points! There was a reason I was mentioning the ADS-3000 - it's CHEAP! You could get a used one on eBay for very cheap and purchase a $15 cable (from midiland.com) to integrate it with your system. The best thing about doing this is that you will get a direct digitally decoded stream from your soundblaster into a decoder. The decoder has the ability to balance/delay each channel as well as a seperate volume/mute control. Delay is something you will NEED in an auto environment since you are sitting at a fixed distance from each speaker. If you don't have proper delay settings than you are wasing $ on a 5.1 setup. I currently use the 5.1 analog output on my soundblaster and have PowerDVD do the decoding for me on my home computer - i took out the external decoder since I didn't need an extra piece of hardware on my desk. PowerDVD does the same thing in movies.

You could spend all the $ in the world on a 6-channel amp and a center speaker - but think......really think and get out of the 'cool-factor' for a minute. Ask yourself this, how many DVD's do u anticipate watching in your car? Most DVD's and only a limited amount of audio dvd's have the dolby digital stream encoded into them....Unless you plan on watching DVD's all the time in addition to wanting semi-accurate sound reproduction in a car you are wasting loads of $ that you could be using for other things like better speakers, a faster computer, a nicer integration with your dash, etc, etc...

Just my .02

-HD

hd54321 whatever you tell them, they absolutely want to convert their 1/8 to RCA then to an amp directly. Let them do what they like, even if we know it's far from good sounding.

Etienne