Does 5.1 channels work in music?

[AskTJ]

Me and my brother were messing around with our Samsung 5.1 surround sound system, and noticed whenever we played music that said it was 5.1, it only played in 2.1.

 

We tried around 25 songs, and all worked through the 2.1 channel.

 

We did a Dolby 5.1 surround sound test, and all the speakers worked, but this was a .AVI file, that showed audio AND video.

 

We have come to a conclusion that surround sound only works for files with audio and video.

 

But we would like some further insight on this.

 

Thank you.

[Oryzaki]

6 minutes ago, AskTJ said:

Me and my brother were messing around with our Samsung 5.1 surround sound system, and noticed whenever we played music that said it was 5.1, it only played in 2.1.

 

We tried around 25 songs, and all worked through the 2.1 channel.

 

We did a Dolby 5.1 surround sound test, and all the speakers worked, but this was a .AVI file, that showed audio AND video.

 

We have come to a conclusion that surround sound only works for files with audio and video.

 

But we would like some further insight on this.

 

Thank you.

From personal experience pretty sure that your assumptions are correct as the same thing happens on my Sonos system 

[Levent]

it all depends what kind of media player you are using, also some sound cards can upscale the audio channels to 5.1 (afaik all realtek cards does that) without depending on the media itself. That being said you can actually output 5.1 audio if you have an audio file that is encoded for 6 channels, if you want 5.1 audio without depending on software tricks.

[PineyCreek]

You can also duplicate the channels, like with Media Player Classic for example in the audio switcher...make left play out of both left speakers, right play out of both right speakers, left and right channels drive center together if you want, etc.

[Vishvas Sudarshan]

Probably depends on the app you're using, I can play Spotify and Netflix and it works perfectly on 5.1. Although Spotify gives me a weird issue:

 

If I have selected my headphones as output in the taskbar, then open Spotify and then switch the output (in taskbar) to my 5.1, Spotify plays in 2.1 through the 5.1 system.

But if the 5.1 is selected and then I open Spotify, everything works just fine

[JZStudios]

What's the source coming from?

But as a general rule, no, music is pretty much always stereo unless explicitly designed for surround, and not all audio formats support it. My Windows Media Player has also been acting up, I'm assuming MS sabotaged it... Anyways I use VLC.

This song is technically only quad, but it works as a test.

1 Have I always Loved You.ogg

[PlayStation 2]

There's a number of factors here.

If the actual output of what you're using is a genuine 5.1 channel audio output and the music's only playing in a 2.1 setup, then it's basically doing its job without any post-processing, barring whatever low-pass filter it's using for the subwoofer to do anything.

Some software (hell, some hardware) can multiplex it (if that's the right term) to 5.1 channels if you wanted to. I have a surround sound downstairs that, in either its "Party" or Dolby Pro Logic II mode, can take a stereo source and turn that into a decent 5.1 channel signal.