Is coaxial/optical needed for surround sound?

[Jimmy319]

Do I need to purchase a digital coaxial or a digital optical for surround sound? Would L/R composite do the job?

 

[markw]

Depends.

Why the big fuss? Virtually any coaxial interconnect will pass the digital signal to your receiver.

If all you want is four channels of matrixed Dolby Pro Logic (or DPLII), then you can get away with just the two red/white analog interconnects.

But, if you want the true discrete 5.1 and 6.1 channel sound which is passed in a digital format, then you most certainly will need either a coaxial or toslink (optical) connection.

 

[MasterChief]

Get Optical! almost the same but i rather have a better optical than a coaxial.

 

[nibhaz]

If you want to listen to surround at it was encoded on a 5.1 track on a dvd you need a digital connection...or a 5.1 analog connection with your dvd player doing the decoding. Your receiver will take a 2 ch signal and make a 5.1 environment, but this is based on evil algorithms not what was mastered at the mixing board. It doesn’t matter if you use coaxial or toslink, both transmit 1’s and 0’s equally well. Toslink’s have the advantage of not being susceptible to RFI or EMI, but are limited to a few meters in length and are limited in their bending radius. Coaxial can handle longer runs and can handle more extreme bends during installation. In reality any well made RCA interconnect should work.