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[MikeO]

Hi

My normal mode so far has been to output from DSP "2 Channel (stereo)" as all I use J River for is audio.

I now want to use it for 5.1 surround as well.

I recently bought an Audiolab M-DAC which has a SPIF output so I want to output raw digital to my AV amp without spoiling the headphone output from the DAC. I feed it to the DAC by USB.

If I set up the Output Format to "Source Number Of Channels", will MC now output stereo for a stereo input and 5.1 for a 5.1 input . It sounds like it should. (maybe a dumb question)

Or do I have to keep swapping the output format in the DSP depending on whether I want 5.1 for a movie or stereo for audio output.

Also is there any tag that tells me if the video audio content is 2 channel 5.1 channel etc.

Thanks in advance

Mike

[astromo]

Firstly, what audio quality is important to you? Are you aware of S/PDIF's limitations for more than 2ch audio?
http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=S/PDIF#Applications

You could set up Zone switch to kick in 5.1 for video and 2ch stereo for audio. Check the Wiki for info.

For Output Format (I was always told the only dumb question is the one that you don't ask), what does the Wiki have to say?
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Audio_Setup

If you run "Analyse Audio" within MC, it will show up the number of audio channels. There are other ways to do this but that's an "on board" method. This data is then available in the meta-data via:
  Tag > Channels

[MikeO]

Thanks for the info , I wasn't aware of the quality issues with SPIF, but as long as Audio is "left pure" which it I am happy. The prime objective is to drive headphones as accurately as possible for my audio collection I can survive video being slightly down.

The M-DAC seems to do this quite nicely . I have a pair of Sennheiser HD800 and they have taken a new lease of life. A review of the MDAC said "it will have you scrabbling back through your collection to see what you have missed".

The only problem I have had so far was an obscure Sampling frequency of 47k from memory (not sure where it came from) I assume if the sampling rate matches an entry in the table in the DSP then it will convert as indicated , I then get a msg box asking do I want the DSP to adjust itself to allow for this. Is it possible to add custom frequencies to the Sample Rate table.

I assume if I hit that I need to reset the DSP after that specific movie , back to my default settings.

I have it set as

Output encoding None
Channels : Source Number of Channels
Sample Rate - All no change.

Thanks for the Channel tip , I see it

Cheers

Mike

[ferday]

If I set up the Output Format to "Source Number Of Channels", will MC now output stereo for a stereo input and 5.1 for a 5.1 input . It sounds like it should. (maybe a dumb question)

Or do I have to keep swapping the output format in the DSP depending on whether I want 5.1 for a movie or stereo for audio output.

Also is there any tag that tells me if the video audio content is 2 channel 5.1 channel etc.

You can only push 5.1 through spdif if it is Dolby encoded, or in a dts file itself.  Setting MC to source channels will not work over optical, you'll either get no sound or garbled sound (I get the latter).  If you check the encoding to output Dolby digital, it will send readable data (2 channel gets up converted to 5.1)

The easiest way to do this IME is make a zone for "multichannel optical" and one for "2 channel optical", then set their output accordingly.  My AVR (and probably most) instantly recognize the Dolby signal and therefore I don't need to touch the receiver, just send to the correct zone

I only listen to actual 2 channel over headphones, so I made some zones there.  If I use my hi fi I always listen multichannel, using either JRSS mixing or one of the receiver presets (so I've made zones for each of those settings as well)

[MikeO]

Hi

I wasn't aware of the limitation with optical , is it the same for Coax as I can do either at this stage, in fact I am actually using coax at the moment simply because that lead was longer !!

I was erroneously assuming they were interchangeable

I have done some more testing and seem to be getting 5.1 through the "raw output" but that was on Coax .

Ta

Mike

[ferday]

Digital coax shares the same limitations as optical

You can only send a multi channel signal down coax or optical if the signal is encoded (compressed) first, and decoded somewhere else in the chain.  Neither supports LPCM/true audio/etc in un-encoded form.  This is true multi channel audio, it is not processing....but you cannot simply pass multi-LPCM.

If you are getting 5.1 sound through either of these cables you are sending/decoding something different than you think, there are no workarounds