Home Theater system for SBLive! Platinum 5.1?????

[ROBOPEZ]

Uh... I just bought a big freakin home audio surround theater system with dolby pro logic and dts digital and digital ins and outs and 100w x 5 plus 100w sub and all that other crap... I bought it specifically so i could hook it up to my brand new sblive platinum 5.1 and play games in four speaker surround like i've been doing with my puny little Cambridge fourpoint surround system that i've had for a while. MY QUESTION IS, am I going to lose the four speaker surround effects i've been used to hearing in Rogue Spear and Descent3? I am scared to open the box to this brand new Kenwood HTB-503 system because i dont think it has the actual functionality that i am looking for. I know for a fact it has the power, (oooohhhh yea), but i dont want to lose the ability to hear if the door behind me is opening, or if a frag bounces off the wall behind me in a multiplayer game. sheesh, look, i want it all, the power, the connectivity, and the functionality. (I think the klipsch promedia v400 probably has the power that im looking for but it has no digital, and the dtt3500 has the digital, decodor, remote, and all that but nowhere near the power...) I really want the powerful system but i dont want to lose those rear channels. CAN ANYONE OUT THERE TELL ME HOW TO SET SUCH A SYSTEM UP? .....uh.....

[Diamond Viper]

You should be able to hook the out puts from the SB Platinum into the back of your reciever for the Home Audio System. It probably has many inputs, from CD to AUX, so you get to choose where to put it in.
Next on the reciever choose dolby digital, and choose how high you want the volume to be and you should be set.
Since both the Platinum and the Reciever have Dolby Digital 5.1, you should have sounds comming from everywhere! Dolby Digital is the best you can have. Enjoy!


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[ROBOPEZ]

OOH. hey thanx for the reply, but...(I still haven't opened the box) if the GAME isnt dolby digital, (i am less worried about my DVD player, I am uh... more confident that that will work) will i still get all of those channels? Its definately not my favorite thing to be a hardhead, but PLEASE somebody, 'splain to me! heh... *its all about the games man*

[dchakrab]

Ok, games are never dolby digital, at least not yet, because they simply don't encode their signals that way...they keep things simple, i guess because they think not enough people have systems that can handle dolby digital encoding, and they dont want to limit their customer base. Still, they could maybe produe two versions of newer games, one for people with ac3, and one for people without...

Anyway, if you're running a game that doesn't use a dolby digital signal, then you can still upmix the signal to that format. I don't know if the sb live plat can do this (i imagine it can)...i know the newer turtle beach card can. Your effects should be unaffected, since you're essentially replacing a speaker system, not the actual sound source signal...speakers don't have to be eax compatible for them to be able to play eax effects.

The basic question is whether or not you're going to get sound from all channels if you're playing a game. I would imagine you're going to be able to hear at least four channels plus bass...the only way to try it out is to try it out and see. So open the box man, and have fun!

Dave.

[ROBOPEZ]

hey look i finally opened the box to this monstor --and-- well, i'm gonna take it back. this reciever really rocks, it has dolby digital input- but- i'm only getting ac3 in the game. Now, even though it is digital sound, ac3 is waaaay inferior to the way i've been playing the games. see, the games that support eax and fourpoint surround have 4 seperate channels (2 in the front and two in the back). ac3 only -essentially- has 3 channels, well four if you count the center channel (for movies not games though) 2 in the front and 2 MONAURAL in the back. Waaaaay inferior to the way i'm used to playing Rogue Spear and Descent3. whats interesting though is that the sblive! platinum supports 6channel digital out via the digital out on the card (the little yellow plug), but the game doesnt. (if you run the ac3 demos from the platinums installation disk, you get a really awesome demo of how good 6channel digital out sounds!) Ah, well anyway, I'm gonna go back and buy a reciever that has 6channel ANALOG ins so i can hear the crap i need to while i'm playing the game. i already saw one and im about to leave now to get it. So much for a purely digital system. Maybe this stuff will be better in a couple more years. Heh. Only problem is, now i gotta pack up all these other speakers and everything and put them back in the box and then go argue with the manager at circuit city to give me my money back. Ah well. anything to make my game more fun while i'm fraggin you suckers on the Zone. hahahaha. Or atleast so i wont feel so bad when i lose- thanx for the help guys and i hope my experience has helped somebody else out there too

[Pailin]

I've got the SBLive 5.1, am going roughly the same way.

I was thinking of rigging it up to a few high end Alpine V12 car amps to give me some serious power for those movies/games.

Just waiting for the DVD player to arrive so I can set it all up. Should be a good improvement on my old Kenwood M-97M Pro Logic system.

Up till now I've always linked through my stereo system, it has much better sound than the PC dedicated speaker systems I've heard. Though I have not heard a number of the systems mentioned here.



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Try everything, but don't assume anything

[ilsie]

wha? AC-3 is 5.1 surround. But unfortunately the Live! may be downmixing the signal to three channels or something weird like that.

[dchakrab]

Yeah....you've probably got some speaker/mixer software/soundcard settings screwup somewhere; dont give up on your setup just yet. Go back and play around with your settings till you're actually using your hardware to it's full potential and then decide on whether you want to keep it or not.

-Dave.