Hello!

im looking for a way to listen to my music on all of my speakers of my surround sound system.

When using my XBOX,this works like a charm,but doing this while working on my computer,it seems is an impossible task :(

my configuration :
windows 2k (latest sounddrivers/sp4/..)
Creative Live Player !1024 digital whatever ,connected via SPDIF to my receiver.
Driversettings => digital output only

I can play AC3/DTS (Vlc/mediaplayer/..) with no problems,but to upmix a stereo source (mp3/ogg/..) to make full use of all of my speakers,I wasnt able so far :(

Also Im aware that a stereo upmix to 5.1 doesnt give me any wonderfull surround experience,but playback on all of the speakers is so much louder/fuller !

so if anyone knows a way to do this,please help me !!!

I dont want to use a converter,or anything else,I simply look for a player ,which can do this on the fly.

Foobar has an "Convert stereo to 4 Channels" DSP. That would at least use more of your speakers. Are you sure your SPDIF can handle more than stereo (when it's not AC3/DTS)?

tried that and the channelmixer DSP,still only a stereo signal reaches my receiver.

Not sure about your question about SPDIF ,as I think there is only stereo and AC3/DTS which can be passed through SPDIF.

when I use the "use all speakers"-option on my XBOX (which is connected via SPDIF to my receiver),the receiver is permanent in 5.1 Mode (Dolby Digital 5.1),as all stereo signals are upmixed to make use of all the surround speakers.

so basicly thats what I need.. a player software for windows,which can upmix a stereo signal into a AC3 steam.

Just to make sure you're aware, to do that, the XBox has to encode/compress the audio to AC3 in order for that to happen. It's not only a fake surround experience, but you lose quite a bit of sound quality.

Does your receiver have an "All Stereo" or "Party Mode" or something similar? On my Onkyo "All Stereo" takes the input and just plays it on all speakers.

yeah Im aware of these facts,but as the xbox encodes into a 640kbps AC3 stream,I doubt there is a lot of (audible) loss.(when using a 192kbit mp3 as source)

hmm just checked my receiver (yamaha rxV450),and found 6chStereo mode,I thought this was just an input option,but actually its a soundmode,and really uses all the speakers.
But sound doesnt feel as full as when listening via xbmc to the same music.
The PrologicII Music mode sounds way better then the 6ch stereo mode.

the more I think about this,I start wondering,if there is a player which can encode stereo in realtime into an AC3 stream...at least not on my hardware (800mhz athlon thunderbird )

guess I have to boot up my xbox when I want real sound in my room :)

You could try a hardware solution like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16829118109

nahh that would be overkill :)
if there isnt a soft(ware) way for this problem,I will stick to winamp and the prologic II music mode on my receiver

ffdshow

.. yea that covers it

Also, the kb5.1 output plugin for winamp does ok as well.

(lossy stereo compression = discusting noise out of the rears)

Oh, and check out forum.doom9.org as there are a few stereo to 5.1 upmixing guides.