To be somewhat short, I have a 5.1 channel .DTS version of Metallica by Metallica on my hard drive and my computer is hooked up to my 5.1 via a line-in headphone jack. My iTunes library has sounded pretty good through using this method, but will I be getting true lossless surround sound audio when playing the rips in VLC?

Right now you only have stereo sound, which might be upmixed to 5.1 speakers by your receiver. This is far from ideal.

Basicly there are two ways to get real (discrete channel) surround sound:
1. Analog. To get real channel 5.1 surround sound you'll need 3 stereo headphone jack kabels and you will need a receiver with 5.1 analog in.
2. Digital. You will need digital out on your pc and a receiver with digital in. And you will only need one cable digital SPDIF cable (a coax or an optical cable).

The difference in quality is totally dependant on the equipment. Usually option 2 will be better though, because most receivers have better DACs than a pc. But the opposide is also very possible if you got a good soundcard.


Keep in mind that DTS and Dolby Digital are lossy formats like mp3, but with more channels. Only the new DTS HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD formats are lossless

What? To your 5.1 channel home theater receiver?

Is this an optical or wire connection? I think some Apple computers have a combination headphone/optical connector.

If you have an optical (or digital coax connection) then you are probably getting true 5.1 channel surround. But other than careful listening, I'm not sure if there's any way to know for sure... When you play a DVD, you can check the audio selections on the DVD menu... I don't know how this works with VLC.

If you've got a wired analog connection (left & right RCA plugs on the receiver end) and you're hearing surround sound, then you're listening to Pro Logic/matrix surround (not true 5.1).

As Mark7 said, DTS is lossy. But whenever the DVD gives me a choice, I always prefer lossy 5.1 channel DTS or Dolby to lossless LPCM stereo!