Buying speakers and a good sound card is the first step to getting surround sound from your Windows PC. However, even after you place your speakers and install the drivers, you still need to setup your surround sound system. Learn how to set up a surround sound system in Windows. Surround Sound and Windows It takes some specific hardware and software to achieve surround sound from a Windows PC. First, you must invest in either 5.1 or 7.1 speakers.
With 5.1 surround sound, you get the following speaker configuration:. Left front. Right front. Center front. Left rear. Right rear.
Subwoofer The typical 7.1 surround sound configuration adds two more speakers offering you:. Left front. Right front. Center front. Left rear.
Right rear. Side left. Side right. Subwoofer Second, you have to install the drivers for your sound card and install any drivers and software that shipped with your speakers. Once you have your speakers properly placed, you are now ready to setup surround sound in Windows.
Note that even though you have surround speakers, there are times when you may want to revert back to stereo, mono, or some other sound configuration. Many people report hearing better sound using a stereo setup when the original source of the sound was recorded in stereo.
The same is true with other configurations. Knowing how to setup surround sound in Windows will allow you to quickly switch arrangements to get the best sound from your PC. How to Setup Surround Sound in Windows Note that following procedure works in Windows Vista, 7, 8 and 10. Begin by clicking on Start – Control Panel – Hardware and Sound – Sound. You can also just click on Start, type in sound and press Enter.
In the Sound window, locate your sound device, click on it once, and then click on the Configure button. Note that you may have several sound devices selected here.
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Make sure the sound device you are about to configure is set as the default sound device. In the Speaker Setup window, note the types of configurations of which your speakers are capable.
In our example, the sound device on our test computer is capable of Stereo and 5.1 Surround. Yours may be capable of more or fewer depending on your hardware. Select the configuration you want in the Audio Channels box. Note that the picture to the right changes depending on your choice. For example, choosing Stereo removes all but two of the speakers pictured. 5.1 adds four additional speakers and 7.1 adds five additional speakers. Make sure your speakers are turned on and the volume is turned up enough so you can hear them.
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Click the Test button and listen as Windows tests each of the speakers in your setup. Note any speakers that are not producing sound and adjust the volume accordingly so you can comfortably hear sound coming from each of the speakers. When finished, click the Next button. Here you can further customize your speakers by telling Windows which speakers are present in your setup.
Typically, you do not have to make any changes here unless you have a specific reason for muting or turning on or off certain speakers. When done, click the Next button. On this window, much of the same logic applies as on the last one. Unless you have a specific reason for turning off these speakers, leave everything checked and click the Next button.
The last screen lets you know that configuration is complete. Click the Finish button and you are done setting up surround sound in Windows. Windows allows you to customize your speakers when setting up surround sound. Using the built-in sound utility in Windows, you can test, turn on, turn off, and reconfigure your surround sound. If you later decide to make changes to how surround sound operates, run the utility again and make the changes you want to make.
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Comparison Request - For all headphone or headphone gear comparison questions. Meta - Posts that talk about the state of the sub. Hi, I wanted to confirm my setup was correctly setup for 7.1 surround on my speaker headphones based on the following: -Sennheiser HD 598 -Astro Mixamp 2014 Edition -My PC with Mobo-Onboard Optical Port I have my HD 598 headphones plugged into the mixamp. Mixamp is plugged into the PC via optical TOSlink cable (into mobo port for Optical). Note that it is also plugged in with a USB Cable for Power to the PC. I have selected Digital Audio (S/PDIF) in Win10 for the default sound (not the 'Speakers' option that is available from the USB connection, if I am understand this correctly) Now couple of questions: -How can I test for 7.1 surround?
The mixamp is supposed to provide virtual 7.1 after receiving digital signal from computer and ultimately produce 7.1 for my HD 598s. I can't test via youtube because no videos properly output surround from youtube. Is there a go-to testing file/site? -Is there anything wrong in my configuration? I thought I read something about needing a certain signal/encoding format sent from my computer to the mixamp in order for it to do it's 7.1 processing correctly to the headphones, an I'm unsure if my onboard audio from the MOBO is outputting the correct type of Dolby signal or w/e is required? (Does this mean I need a soundcard in addition to the mixamp?) Thanks. So there's a potential that my sound coming out of my onboard mobo optical port is not surround or in the right format?
From what I understood a 5.1 signal would come out, get converted to 7.1 in the mixamp, and then play software simulated 7.1 through the stereo headphones. What I wanted to figure out was: How do I know if the source is outputting the correct format?
It says supported formats DTS Audio and Dolby Digital as checked in the Windows Sound options, Rear Panel Optical Jack. However when I do test tone it just does left and right). Hi, I'm familiar with the playback options + testing - and had a question around this.
With the Digital Audio (S/PDIF) device selected and in the Sound Options from Windows. It says supported formats DTS Audio and Dolby Digital as checked on boxes in the Windows Sound options (Rear Panel Optical Jack). However when I do test tone it just does left and right and doesn't allow me to hit the Configure button to change any additional options.
Is this normal for the Optical-Out-Port from PC, Digital Audio (S/PDIF)? I know in my HDMI setup to my actual 5.1 surround system, it detects the 5.1 and I can test accordingly. Here's my take on it. 7.1 surround sound data contains 7 individual channels of audio information as well as a LFE (low frequency effects) channel, and is literally meant to be played back on 7 actual speakers and a sub. This is especially true for movies where the audio data uses dolby or thx encoding methods.
In short, this 7.1 data is incompatible with stereo speakers and headphones. So, how do they get it to work? Regardless of what they promise, getting 7.1 to play on headphones requires decoding the 7.1 data and processing it back into stereo. If you look at the MixAmp site, the Pro TR device supports 'Dolby® 5.1 and 7.1 Surround Sound decoding and Dolby® Headphone encoding'.
So, basically they're pulling the 7.1 data apart, squishing it back into a 2.0 data bottleneck, then processing it further to add spatial effects using Dolby Headphone. Is that actually 7.1 surround sound then? Heavily processed stereo, but stereo nonetheless. Wouldn't it be better to just start with properly mixed 2.0 data and add the desired extra-spiffy spatial effects? But even then, every time data has to get processed and converted from one thing to another, negative effects to quality happen. I'll take unprocessed and properly mixed stereo output over that any day, and let my ears do the work of interpreting the spatial queues - something your ears are exceedingly good at doing on their own.
No need in trying to trick them with overly processed sounding junk.