Emergency Help With Home Theatre!!!???

Question

1. Can you use a anolog coaxial plug into a digital plug?

2. Does the coaxial(old style, not digital) carry 5.1 sound?

2.b. If not please help on how i can do this.

3. Do you need special speaker cable for 5.1 or just regular stuff?

Answer 1

1. Yes

2. Yes

3. Just regular stuff

"regular stuff" should be good quality 16 gauge copper wire but it should have been that long before 5.1 came out

Answer 2

1. What do you mean by "analog coaxial plug"?  If you mean RCA phono plugs wired to a 75 ohm coaxial cable and connecting a digital coaxial RCA (usually coded orange) output from, for example, a DVD player and connected to digital coax input on a receiver ... yes (RCA phono plugs/jacks aren't analog or digital per se, it's the signal that counts not the form of the plug).

If you mean can you connect a "normal" RCA cable (non-coax) to a digital output/input ... again, yes, you can use the wire, but it won't work as well as a 75 ohm coaxial cable.

2) I think this is my second option above. Non coax cables will carry digital BUT the results won't be as good as on a 75 ohm coaxial cable (and at some point will fail due to rounding of the digital signal). Digital coax outputs will supply, and any cable physically connected via an RCA plug will deliver, bitstream surround sound (e.g. DD, DTS) ... exactly the same as optical cables (which are the optical equivalent of digital coax). BUT, again, use a 75 ohm coax connection for best results. Normal ("old style") RCA outputs (coded red/white) only pass analog mono (on each RCA jack) ... not digital multichannel.

3) Regular stuff. Speaker cable requirements for surround sound are the same as for mono or stereo. The only difference is the number of speakers.

See the link for details about proper digital coax connection cables.

I hope this is clear and answers your question.