# 5.1 from laptop USB sound card via optical (Dolby Digital Live)



## tguillea (Jun 11, 2014)

I'm trying to set up 5.1 in my living room but nothing seems to work.

I have a 10+ year old Bose Lifestyle AV28 receiver that goes out to the paired Acoustimass PS-28 subwoofer (which has the RCA connections to all 5 double-cube speakers). The input to the receiver is an optical cable that is attached to my USB sound card (Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 Pro - model SB1095).

In windows, I have specified the Dolby Digital Live output, and the only other options available to select are various 2-channel options with different sample rates. When I test the surround sound through windows (clicking the "Test" button with the play symbol next to it, it outputs in each channel independently).

This seems to be the only time the rear channels are independent of the front channels - EVERY other test I find that is supposed to be "front right only" or "rear right only" plays the sound through both.


I've gone over all the weird Bose settings (like mono decoding - set to off - and ensuring it is set to 5 speaker output) but I still can't seem to get "true" surround from any of these tests.

Any help in troubleshooting would be greatly appreciated - thanks!


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## mechman (Feb 8, 2007)

What are you using as the source for the 5.1 surround? Is it a Blu-ray? Or is it a file on your laptop? Are you certain that it is encoded properly?


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## lcaillo (May 2, 2006)

I don't know anything about the Bose, but on other systems 5 channel output is not decoding surround sound, just putting the front channels in the surround channels. Is there some dolby mode on the Bose?


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