5.1 Surround in the car

**antimatter** · 07-28-2004, 04:57 PM

Yea it looks like a futil cause. Although he did mention that he wasnt going to be using a USB sound card which is a big plus. but still i like the option of being able to decod movies with DTS and using prologic.

I like the sound of music and am now partial to it with a center channel. It was funny i played a trick on friend. WHen i picked her up I had some good Praise and Worship music playing with the center chanel (5.1) and then after a while i asked her what sounds better...the current (with 5.1) or stereo (as i switched it to 4ch stereo).

She immediatly noticed a difference and commented how much she like it before with the center chanel.

While designing my system 5.1 DD, DTS and Prologic were all requirements thats why i went with an external processor besides the fact that I only had 1 PCI slot which was going to be dedicated to a higher end graphics card. Plus USB and my bandwidth was already heavily used and i didn't want a horror story like some i have heard.

Good luck with your setup.

**Vijindr** · 07-28-2004, 05:24 PM

Ok well I've got to say I've gotten more info outta this than I could have possibly hoped for... And I'm sold on the external DSP that antimatter's using because of it's nice dash integration and the prologic/DTS, although that Phoenix Gold 5.1 is looking pretty attractive because its way cheaper and consolidates the decoder/amp into one unit...

**antimatter** · 07-28-2004, 08:07 PM

Yea... but only 100wrms on the sub channel

**antimatter** · 07-28-2004, 08:09 PM

I use the Soundtream D'artigan 5.1

It has six channels 65wrms on 5 channels (surround and center) and 400wrms on the sub.

Plus you can bridge the sub channel to double the watts with another 400wrms amp

I am very happy with my setup

**0l33l** · 07-28-2004, 11:55 PM

Stupid question of the day: why do you guys care were the audio is converted to analog format? Its not like you are going to be recording in your car.

**Vijindr** · 07-29-2004, 12:41 AM

the more wire carries analog signal, the more rf interference and other noise you pick up -- digital signals are far more robust when it comes to that (trust me, doing some of the circuit labs in my engineering curriculum, ur doing it with analog and you're like wtf where is that interference coming from...)
so if you only have it analog from the amp to the speaker, then you have the lowest vulnerability to interference of different types (and an easier time troubleshooting it when you have a bad ground or pops or whatever.)
but this is all really irrelevant, you can do well with no digital whatsoever, my previous setup in my old 240sx was like that, all analog with an fm mod to pipe it to the head unit.
anyways i don't think anybody here cared where the D-A conversion occurs -- we were debating different methods of obtaining 5.1 in the car based on other merits.

**0l33l** · 07-29-2004, 01:18 AM

Originally Posted by Vijindr

the more wire carries analog signal, the more rf interference and other noise you pick up -- digital signals are far more robust when it comes to that (trust me, doing some of the circuit labs in my engineering curriculum, ur doing it with analog and you're like wtf where is that interference coming from...)

As you said it depends where you run it. People have been running analog cable for ages and I haven't heard of one person compaining about noise.

**antimatter** · 07-29-2004, 01:27 AM

Originally Posted by 0l33l

As you said it depends where you run it. People have been running analog cable for ages and I haven't heard of one person compaining about noise.

Are you for real??

Do a search on google for alternator whine or ground loop and tell me no one complains about noise.

One reason i chose to run a digital line back to the surround sound processor is becasue the onboard sound cards of integrated boards like the EPIA M10000 usually suck and are low voltage (on the analog line) so it seemed cleaner to use the digital signal. Plus i can notice a difference between the two (i have an analog line and a SPDIF line ran).

But it is absurd to even insinuate that people don't have a problem with noise.... shoot it has plagued the car sound industry for decades and still continues too.

**Vijindr** · 07-29-2004, 02:24 AM

no kidding man... my dad's car had it so bad you could practically turn up the volume and use the radio as a tach!

**moltensilver** · 07-29-2004, 04:24 AM

Ok I don't where to start. First I am an active member of avsforum.com specifically in HTPC's (Home Theater Personal Computers) and also consider myself an expert in computer based recording (Protools etc.) . People over there are very high end audiophiles and some are replacing high end receivers with HTPC's equipped with PCI 7.1 sound cards (namely M-Audio Revolution, AudioTek Prodigy and the Sound Blaster Line) and claiming better sound quality when outputting to a external power amp via the mini jack converter I mentioned.

It seems the D/A (Digital to analog) convertion on these cards is fairly high end compared to most receivers (seems hard to believe to me even). In a high end competition system a pro recording level D/A converter could be used from companies such as Apogee or others.

There is a large debate at avs about SQ (sound quality) and cables. People noting sound quality issues with mini plugs. The counterarguement is that analog runs on a thin copper lead on the PCB (printed circuit board) on the sound card so the stereo mini plug is not a SQ inhibiter. The only issue with mini plugs is simply durabiltity of patching and repatching. That is why recording setups use 1/4" and XLR jacks.

Honestly, in a Carpc surround system espc. one created around stock speakers the D/A conversion will not be the weakest link in the system therefore IMHO a PCI based or USB 7.1 sound card is the simplest and best setup for CarPC. It also should be noted that the software provided with these cards has tuning settings (delay, speaker distance etc.)

Obviously there are alot of different setups that can be used and no one solution is best for everyone.

Good luck and have fun.

moltensilver