Enabling stereo music to play on all speakers (7.1 system) through pc, dummy needs help

myrothe

Estimable
May 26, 2014
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4,510
Ive been trying to google a solution for hours now, hopefully someone here can help me understand.

Here's my setup. I have a Yamaha Rx-A860 7.1 surround receiver. The way it's setup I have an hdmi running from my graphics card (Nvidia Gtx 1080) to the receiver. Then hdmi from the receiver to the tv.

All of my movies/games work as intended. However since music is mostly 2 channel any time I play music through Amazon music, pandora, spotify, and MPC it simply plays from my left and right speakers instead of filling the room.

I have tried going to the windows sound device settings, but apparently running hdmi from the graphics card to the receiver does not allow for "speaker fill" as that box doesnt even appear in the enhancements tab.

I've heard that it is an option with Realtek HD audio manager, but that only seems to work with digital output, which apparently isn't the same as HDMI.

Multiple options for "NVIDIA Output" popup under playback devices but they all say "not plugged in" and when I try using "Realtek digital audio" there is no sound, so the only option that works is "E400i-C2-4" which is the hdmi to receiver. When I test it and set it to 7.1 it works fine, all the speakers play a tone.

So basically with that E400i-C2-4 option when I play movies with MPC, or KODI, or video games, it works as it should and there is surround sound. However music always defaults to just the 2 speakers with no way I can find to change it. I have a very large room and only having music play out of the 2 speakers sounds awful.

Any help would be greatly appreciated because I don't understand what to do next
 
Solution
Have you tried changing settings on the receiver when listening to music? Most receivers have some sort provisions for doing exactly what your trying to do. In other words, select some other processing besides DTX or Dolby when listening to music. Not familiar with your receiver, but most of the time, there is a option to use all speakers for music playback.

ricdiculus

Distinguished
Aug 25, 2009
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18,660
Have you tried changing settings on the receiver when listening to music? Most receivers have some sort provisions for doing exactly what your trying to do. In other words, select some other processing besides DTX or Dolby when listening to music. Not familiar with your receiver, but most of the time, there is a option to use all speakers for music playback.
 
Solution