Help me select a sound option on my receiver

[FEIX20]

So I finally took the time to set up the speakers in my living room. Of course I have a pc hooked up to it, along with a bunch of other stuff.

So my question is - I have a LOT of sound options on my receiver. All I want is "simulated" surround sound. It doesn't have to be perfect, just has to be good enough to fool me if I'm not paying close attention.

It is a standard 5.1 setup - left, right, center, rear left & right + subwoofer.

So, what is the one setting I can just leave it on and let it do the work, regardless of what device I'm using?? Ideally I'd like simulated surround from both video games and movies... if I need a specific setting for each, that's fine. But I don't really want to be swapping sound options all the time if avoidable.

My pre-set movie sound options:

Dolby PLIIx Movie
Dolby EX
DTS Neo: 6
Dolby PLIIx Movie (TV Logic)
All Ch Stereo
Full Mono (pretty sure this is just same sound from all speakers?)
Theater-Dimensional
Direct
Mono
Multichannel


Pre-set game audio selections:

Multichannel
Dolby EX
DTS Neo:6
Dolby PLIIx Music (Game-RPG)
Dolby PLIIx Movie (Game-Action)
Dolby PLIIx Music (Game-Rock)
Dolby PLIIx Movie (Game-Sports)
All Ch Stereo
Full Mono
Theater-Dimensional
Direct


Am I safe to just pick the ones where it says Movie or the game type? I don't know if they are worth worrying about.
leopardtron pcb

 

[ssddx]

is there a particular reason why you want "simulated" instead of "true" ?

if you have a full receiver and not one of those very limited boxes which come with cheap HTIB sets then you should have hdmi inputs and it would be capable of full 5.1 surround sound.

from a surround sound source with a surround input capble box..... normally i leave mine on auto (i use a receiver with my ps3, ps2, pc, laptop and mp3 player). this defaults to stereo (when in windows), pcm (when playing games) or dd (dolby digital when playing dd content like movies). this seems to work out the best. the only time i change this setting is when i have stereo content which i want to duplicate across the rear speakers in which case i use external stereo mode (on yours perhaps this is all ch stereo mode??)

if you are forced with a stereo source (or your box is incapable of 5.1 into it) and want to try and make 5.1 out of it then technically either dts neo 6 or db plIIx would work.... but dolby prologic IIx seems to be preferred because it allows more options in customizing how it sounds to you.

just a note about optical if that is how you are connecting to the pc.... it is capable of 5.1 if you have a soundcard capable of DTS or similar (basically compressing the sound) and a receiver which can read dolby digital formats. otherwise normally you will only get 2.0 which is uncompressed.

again, typically i just leave things set on auto in my case and only change it when that does not work.

in your case you could either do the same thing, or if you cannot receive a surround source for some reason you could leave it on db pl IIx. i would suggest stereo mode for music though (or perhaps all ch stereo if this works how i think it does) since this should sound a bit better in that particular scenario.