Surround Sound help

[ksuwild25]

Hey I have an Xbox, 27" Panasonic TV, and a Kenwood (KS-206HT) 600 watts receiver with dolby digital and dolby pro logic II. I want my Xbox to be able to have surround sound, but I'm not real sure on how to do it. I looked around the internet and dolby's website was pretty helpful, but I thought my fellow users would be more helpful. Basically, I'm asking what do I need to be able to listen to Dolby Digital sounds and how to hook it up. Any advice would be helpful, because I'm pretty clueless on these types of things. Thanks for your time.

[sandwiches99]

You have to get either the AV Pack or the High Def Pack. AV Pack has S-Video, RCA three outputs (the yellow, white, and red), and a toslink port you connect to your receiver. High Def Pack is basically the same thing but allows you to use component video.

Do not get Monster Cable's solution, it is stupid. It has the RCA cabling go into toslink.. what a waste.

I highly recommend playing Xbox with DD 5.1, it really adds to the gaming experience. In summary, get either the AV Pack or High Def pack (depending on what your TV has, and a toslink cable if you don't already have one.

[Birbo]

You need to get an Xbox advanced av pack. See it here:

Cheap ass link
http://www.ebgames.com/ebx_assets/thumbnails/209498.gif (http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/click?id=FKSJxY2VJAk&offerid=54879.114440912&type=10&subid=)

You'll also need a digital optical cable to connect your Xbox and receiver together. Kinda like this one:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=1051384701929&type=product&productC ategoryId=cat08053

Don't forget to change the settings on your Xbox dashboard once you have it all hooked up. Hopefully this answers all your questions.

[ksuwild25]

Thanks for your replies so far. I was planning on getting that Xbox advanced av pack. Does it matter what kind of optical cable I get and what is the best brand if there is one? I was planning on getting this stuff at Best Buy, but if there is a better place for this type of stuff just let me know. Thanks.

[danh920]

I went with a monster optical cable, they're by far the most durable, the cheap ones will not transmit as nicely, I know that monster makes one that may be in the gaming section at bb which should allow use of the ggc. This is the one I have, remember you can get $5 off in store with the ggc as well.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=1051806449575&type=product&productC ategoryId=cat08190

I haven't used the monster xbox video cables though, I have the ms hd pack myself and it works fine for me. Get either the hd or advanced av (with s-vid) for $19.99 plus the ggc

[sandwiches99]

I'd stay far away from the Monster Xbox Video Cables. Just take a look at it and see.

As far as the toslink cable goes.. its up to you. Just FYI, this is where a lot of companies make their money, so expect it to run about $20 at BB (thats how much it was last time I checked).

I have a Monster toslink cable and a generic one I got off Ebay for $7 or so. I tried to tell if there was a difference but couldn't. Anyone here know if there could be a difference in quality?

[ksuwild25]

Thanks everybody for your help and opinions. I got the 6ft. digital optical cable from Acoustic Research and the Xbox advanced pack and got everything hooked up and it looks and sounds wonderful. I plan on staying away from the monster cable but just because my brother got them for his ps2 once and we didn't really notice anything. I don't know if this was because the tv was old and it also ended up burning out a couple of weeks later. Once again, thanks.

[sparkoc]

A word on the quality difference between Monster and other optical cables. I have both and cannot tell the difference. The optical cables just transmit light at different frequencies, so either it works or it doesn't. There is no difference in the quality of light being transmitted. The only issue to consider is durability. Besides the Monster, I also have a $2 optical cable that is very thin, but works fine.

[pimpinc333]

Hey i have a question on this matter, i have my optical cable hooked up from reciever to dvd player so is there a way to also hook it up to my XBOX

[ksuwild25]

Right now my optical cable is hooked up to my Xbox's Advanced Av pack and the other end is connected to the receiver. I only have one optical cable outlet that I noticed on my receiver so I would have to switch the other end of the xbox to my dvd player if I wanted to listen to that. If there is another possible way of this what looks to be constant switching for me I would also like to know.

[Michelli]

Hey Ksu, check if your reciever and DVD player have a coaxial input, it looks like a regular RCA input, use that for the DVD player and the optical input for the xbox.

[erika1209]

Can you do this with a PS2?

[Michelli]

I think you can do it with the new PS2's(not sure) through almost the same method, but I'm pretty sure the new PS2s don't need an AV pack, they come with optical outputs. Keep in mind, I'm not sure.

[doubledown]

Yeah, see if your DVD has a COAX output for sound. That works JUST AS GOOD as an optical cable.

If not...you may be out of luck. I know my receiver has two optical inputs.....adn a coax.

I use COAX from DVD and OPTICAL from Comcast HD DVR & XBOX

[LV-426RS]

What's the difference between a COAX orange coded wire and a reguler rca red/white/yellow coded wire?

[CheapyD]

I think you can do it with the new PS2's(not sure) through almost the same method, but I'm pretty sure the new PS2s don't need an AV pack, they come with optical outputs. Keep in mind, I'm not sure.

Even the old PS2's have a built in optical output.

[doubledown]

What's the difference between a COAX orange coded wire and a reguler rca red/white/yellow coded wire?

COAX is digital, it can pass the 5.1 signal. RCA's are analog, you can only get 2.0 with them

No game systems support COAX though....at least to my knowledge. Most DVD players should support this.

I think most even PREFER COAX vs OPTICAL


OH YEAH: Here is an OPTICAL CABLE SPLITTER
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/pshowdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=180-964

[LV-426RS]

What's the difference between a COAX orange coded wire and a reguler rca red/white/yellow coded wire?

COAX is digital, it can pass the 5.1 signal. RCA's are analog, you can only get 2.0 with them

No game systems support COAX though....at least to my knowledge. Most DVD players should support this.

I think most even PREFER COAX vs OPTICAL


OH YEAH: Here is an OPTICAL CABLE SPLITTER
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/pshowdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=180-964
So you can not use the regular rca in place of the coax, right?

Cool thanks. My surround sound has two optical and one coax. I've got my DVD to one optical and the Xbox to the other. Was wanting to free up one for the PS2 and wanted to make sure a regular rca cable wouldn't work before possible wasting money on a coax.

[doubledown]

Yep, RCA will NOT work. If your DVD player has COAX, use that and switch the other optical cable to your PS2.

If not COAX, buy a splitter

[govegan]

So you can not use the regular rca in place of the coax, right?

Cool thanks. My surround sound has two optical and one coax. I've got my DVD to one optical and the Xbox to the other. Was wanting to free up one for the PS2 and wanted to make sure a regular rca cable wouldn't work before possible wasting money on a coax.

Actually, a regular rca cable will work just as well as a so-called digital coaxial cable. They're exactly the same thing. Buying an RCA cable labelled "digital coax" would just be a waste of money, especially if you've got a spare RCA cable laying around.

[Snake2715]

So you can not use the regular rca in place of the coax, right?

Cool thanks. My surround sound has two optical and one coax. I've got my DVD to one optical and the Xbox to the other. Was wanting to free up one for the PS2 and wanted to make sure a regular rca cable wouldn't work before possible wasting money on a coax.

Actually, a regular rca cable will work just as well as a so-called digital coaxial cable. They're exactly the same thing. Buying an RCA cable labelled "digital coax" would just be a waste of money, especially if you've got a spare RCA cable laying around.

You know I would call bullshit on this BUT a buddy of mine ran one RCA and plugged it into his Coax on his received and it kicked up to 5.1.

I didnt listen to long after that but the received did light upa s though it were decoding in 5.1 and all speakers came on.

He swears to this day it does the same thing. Food for thought.

[mick16]

If your looking for a coaxial digital cable, just go buy a 75 ohm VIDEO CABLE with a RCA connectors on them. Its the same exact thing as the "coaxial digital cable" that they sell for $50 elsewhere.

Here's one that you can get at best buy for $12:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=1051384699157&skuId=4118001&product CategoryId=cat08061&type=product

Although it is possible to use the cheapy red and white regular audio RCA cables, they aren't shielded, nor are they mfg'd to carry the digital audio bandwith, so you'll incur substantially more signal loss & distortion.

[doubledown]

Yeah, I guess you can just use RCA cables for everything....coax and even component cables. Now, you may lose some quality since they use different shielding in different cables, but I guess it all works. I usually just use the AR cables from Best Buy....they always work great.

[DocBledsoe]

Don't forget to change the settings on your Xbox dashboard once you have it all hooked up. Hopefully this answers all your questions.

This sounds stupid but I forgot to do this and nearly threw my remote through the TV trying to get the sound to work.