kind of dumb question on Dolby Digital and 5.1 on old receivers (1 Viewer)

[Eric_M]

Excuse my ignorance but here it goes...Ok as I was reading some specs on older recievers I noticed some listed as 5 channel receievers , meaning they had the ability to put 5 speakers on there yet they didn't have Dolby Digital and some were only DD ready.

Are these receivers not 5.1 then even though they have the capability of having the 5 speakers connected with the sub?

 

[Marc Rochkind]

For of all, if they have 5 channels, they are at most 5.0, not 5.1.

If it has 5 preamp inputs (phono jacks), you can certainly do the DD decoding in the DVD player, and connect it to the receiver using 5 analog cables. Not every DVD player can do this, but many can.

If the receiver doesn't have multichannel peramp inputs and also doesn't decode DD, then I can't think of anything you can do.

 

[Philip Hamm]

Older "DD Ready" receivers like mine generally have a 5.1 input. They run exactly the same as current receivers with a 5.1 external input for something like DVD-Audio. Most are analog only with Digital Processing only used for DSP modes and DPL on the stereo analog L/R inputs.