Surround sound 5.1 issues

[Bowjangls]

I just recently got a LG S70tr soundbar with surround sound 5.1.1 but I am having issues getting the surround sound to work. I have gone into the sound settings and configured the speakers to surround 5.1, but so far none of my media has come through the surround speakers. Before I set the system for 5.1 the surround speakers would be incredibly whisper quiet and have an odd warbly sound to them. At this point, everything has been updated and seems to be set properly but I still get no surround sound. When I test the surround system in windows all of the test chimes play in the correct spots at the correct volume but videos and the windows volume chime will not play out of the surround speakers.

[Bowjangls]

After some more tinkering I have found a Windows Sonic Enhancement setting and it seems that surround sound will not work without this setting.

[CommanderAlex]

1 hour ago, Bowjangls said:

videos and the windows volume chime will not play out of the surround speakers.

Do the videos have 5.1 surround? If not, they won't play out of the rear surround speakers. 

[GuiltySpark_]

What @CommanderAlex said. Media isn't magically transformed into discrete 5.1 channels just because you have that many speakers. Movies include specially encoded audio tracks that then need to be decoded and individual channels sent to the specified speaker. Just normal PC content and games won't have this, so you need to "fake" it. 

 

Back in the day, this was a widely supported feature with Soundblaster cards and EAX, though these days 5.1 PC gaming is all but dead. Clunky and a pain, with having to rely on things like Dolby Access to "mix" stereo sources into 5.1 (or more) channels to then be decoded by an AVR or soundbar. https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9N0866FS04W8?hl=en-us&gl=US&ocid=pdpshare

[Omon_Ra]

On 9/11/2025 at 9:25 AM, GuiltySpark_ said:

What @CommanderAlex said. Media isn't magically transformed into discrete 5.1 channels just because you have that many speakers. Movies include specially encoded audio tracks that then need to be decoded and individual channels sent to the specified speaker. Just normal PC content and games won't have this, so you need to "fake" it. 

A lot of AV receivers have a 'multi-channel stereo' mode, which will 'mirror' the front left/right 2.0 audio to your rear left/right; but like you said, it is basically faking it. I think some soundbars can do this as well as I recall. But you'd have to go through the settings of the soundbar to see for sure.

 

OP: that 'warbly' sound is usually the result of a stereo media source getting halfway output to the rear speakers. I don't know exactly how or why it happens, if it's something with the wireless/bluetooth rear speaker receivers/amps, or a problem with decoding, but I've definitely heard what you're talking about. And on various brands of soundbars with wireless surrounds. You can really only notice it if you're right next to the speakers as it's typically very quiet though. Make sure you have actual 5.1/5.1.1 encoded content, and when there's supposed to be things making sound behind you, the rears will sound normal.

[circeseye]

On 9/10/2025 at 4:22 PM, Bowjangls said:

After some more tinkering I have found a Windows Sonic Enhancement setting and it seems that surround sound will not work without this setting.

besides what others have said, use dolby not sonic. dolby is free for surround set ups (headphones you have to pay for) if you dont have the option go to windows store and download it (hell theres even dts-x if supported)

another thing you may see. with sound bars the rears may not be as loud or adjustable unlike avr's where you can turn them up. surround speakers are in truth "ambiance". hell some movies will barely use them where others are amazing.

if your watching videos in a browser unless your system is set right and browser supports it it will be only stereo. 

also windows "dings" will not play in surround. they are stereo, actually midi i think?

[Bowjangls]

So using the Windows Sonic Enhancement setting did make my audio 5.1 and it worked well, however, plugging in a hdmi cord into my graphics card seems to make windows 11 have a meltdown, because if I decide to use the soundbar plugged into hdmi to get 5.1 surround, I can no longer use hdr with my monitor. I was just trying for about 2 hours to get my hdr to work with the soundbar plugged in via hdmi and windows will not let that happen. Windows 11 will show the soundbar as display 2, but override my display 1 monitor, forcing me to clone or duplicate my display, or, will force the display 2 soundbar to become the primary display, no matter my settings, and either make my monitor just show a blank wallpaper that cannot display apps, or put my monitor to sleep as if it were unplugged or not receiving a signal. From what I can gather, windows sees an hdmi connection and forces a low quality video signal, 360 or 480 with no output, no matter what, and then forces me out of hdr and just says that my monitor is not compatible. Spidf doesn't seem to be able to do 5.1 and from a little reading usb has problems with 5.1 as well. How can I use hdr on my monitor and use my soundbar in hdmi 5.1? I don't really want to get a sound card but I'm not really seeing a way around that at this point. If anyone knows how to make my graphics card hdmi port only output audio when connected to my soundbar so I can just use 5.1 and hdr ay the same time, that would be greatly appreciated. My monitor is plugged into DP and soundbar in hdmi if that wasn't clear before.

[circeseye]

2 hours ago, Bowjangls said:

If anyone knows how to make my graphics card hdmi port only output audio when connected to my soundbar so I can just use 5.1 and hdr ay the same time, that would be greatly appreciated. My monitor is plugged into DP and soundbar in hdmi if that wasn't clear before.

you cant. it will always be detected as a video source first. i have yet to see an only audio out option on hdmi

[Bowjangls]

14 hours ago, ahmad34 said:

I ran into a similar issue with my setup—turned out the app I was using was only outputting stereo. Double-check your playback source and try using HDMI eARC instead of optical for proper 5.1 support.

The only eARC port on the soundbar is for it to go to a display, if I don't get a ton of latency, maybe i can just passthrough the soundbar to my monitor. I don't really play any games super competitively anymore anyway, so maybe it won't really be an issue even if there is some latency.

[Bowjangls]

Ok so I tried it but it, limits me to 60hz max and hdr is still disabled, I just wish that the hdmi signal didn't cause my display port signal to die. It just forces the hdmi signal as the primary display no matter what, if I could just make my displayport stay as primary display I wouldn't have to clone the signal as if I had 2 monitors being mirrored but right now that is the only way I can get video and surround.

[Bowjangls]

If I go to the multiple display page I can make it show only screen 1 (my monitor) and my hdr works, but my pc cant see the soundbar at all for some reason. I can duplicate screen 1(monitor) and screen 2(soundbar) and get 5.1 surround, but then hdr is no longer supported. Is there a way to make display 1 show only video and make screen 2 only do audio so screen 1 will do hdr?

[Bowjangls]

I have just noticed, if I do not duplicate the screens, the soundbar shows up as unplugged in the control panel sound settings. If I don't blend the displays the computer will just ignore the soundbar entirely. The dumb thing is in the blutooth and devices settings I can go into it and make it not allow audio output, when what I need is for it to not allow video output.

[Bowjangls]

For now I am connecting with blutooth and using windows sonic bs to (kinda) do surround through the speakers, it's not as good as the real 5.1, but unless someone knows how to get this hooked up via hdmi or usb without windows shitting itself, this is about all I can think to do at this point.

[BuzzingBee]

21 hours ago, Bowjangls said:

For now I am connecting with blutooth and using windows sonic bs to (kinda) do surround through the speakers, it's not as good as the real 5.1, but unless someone knows how to get this hooked up via hdmi or usb without windows shitting itself, this is about all I can think to do at this point.

Just to be clear, did you connect HDMI input to your soundbar and not HDMI TV ARC? 

 

If it sounds a bit too complicated it's because soundbars generally are for TVs and not for PC. I really wish soundbars just include USB port for PC and have 5.1 LPCM working that way (your soundbar's USB port is just for media like USB memory stick) 

 

Not entirely sure what's up with your PC unfortunately. If you happen to have CPU with integrated GPU support you could try connecting HDMI port on motherboard and not from your dedicated GPU card. 

[Bowjangls]

On 9/28/2025 at 8:31 PM, BuzzingBee said:

Just to be clear, did you connect HDMI input to your soundbar and not HDMI TV ARC? 

 

If it sounds a bit too complicated it's because soundbars generally are for TVs and not for PC. I really wish soundbars just include USB port for PC and have 5.1 LPCM working that way (your soundbar's USB port is just for media like USB memory stick) 

 

Not entirely sure what's up with your PC unfortunately. If you happen to have CPU with integrated GPU support you could try connecting HDMI port on motherboard and not from your dedicated GPU card. 

I did plug into the regular hdmi in, the other is just an hdmi earc to a display, It does have a usbA port so I might try that at some point, but I have heard it comes with it's own problems. My Ryzen 7 7800x3d does have its own graphics that I have disabled, I will try re-enabling the graphics and plug into my mobo hdmi and try it out.

[Bowjangls]

Na, same problem, the pc still thinks there are 2 displays and if I don't mirror them, it acts like the soundbar is unplugged and ignores it.

[Bowjangls]

To anyone stalking this, it is finally working. A few days ago I tried extending the screen so that the main display (display 1) would be my monitor and the soundbar (display 2) would be an auxiliary, it finally worked instead of windows having a meltdown. I also went into the device manager and disabled the soundbar as a monitor(which probably was the problem). Now my monitor will do 144hz with HDR and my soundbar will do 5.1 surround via HDMI.