Can you listen to Blu-ray discs through a Bose 3-2-1 GS Series II system that doesn’t support HD sound formats

Question

Say you have a blu-ray disc that only has dolby 5.1 TruSurround and DTS-HD for surround sound options, can you listen to those in surround sound on the bose system? Would it compress the sound so I could listen to it in normal 5.1 dolby digital surround sound? I’d be hooking up the sound from the blu-ray player to my bose system using a digital optical cable.

Answer 1

Bottom line: Maybe.

Its a very complex subject .. given mandatory and optional requirements for players and disks and limitations for different connection types.

A complete discussion can be found at the link, but I've quoted some sections below.

You should be able to listen to the disk, but you won't hear either Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio .. you will get standard DD or DTS, so as long as your Bose model handles these, you are OK.

Caveat: I had a look at the Bose manual (2nd link) and while it mentions DD, it doesn't say specifically -- that I could find -- that it supports DTS. So IF you are correct that the disk in question does not have a DD track you could be out of luck ... since you appear to not have DTS support.

Details re advanced audio on Blu-ray

You can't get Dolby TrueHD over optical:

"TrueHD is an optional format on Blu-ray. And since TrueHD is not built in a core+extension configuration, Blu-ray discs that contain a TrueHD track are also required to contain a standard Dolby Digital AC-3 track for compatibility with players that don't support TrueHD."

"SPDIF cannot carry a TrueHD signal. If using this connection type, the player will automatically revert to playing back the standard Dolby Digital AC-3 track instead."

Similarly you won't hear DTS HD Master:

"Like DTS-HD HR, Master Audio is optional on the Blu-ray format. If the player does not support DTS-HD MA, it can extract the standard DTS core."

"SPDIF cannot carry a DTS-HD MA signal. When using this connection type, the player will extract the standard DTS core instead and transmit that as a bitstream."

See why I said it's complex??

Answer 2

yes you can!