I have a DVD player with digital co-ax output.

Question

I have a DVD player with digital co-ax output and a set of surround speakers.

I am looking for an inexpensive compatible 5.1 sound system.

Can anyone please advise

Answer 1

The connector you mention is called S/PDIF and is used to transfer digital audio. On DVD players it can transfer Dolby Digital, DTS and LPCM audio. The great thing about it is that you can use the same type of cable that is used for composite video - and these cables are really cheap. (They're 75 ohm coax cables and have yellow RCA plugs) No expensive hi-fi cables reqired.

I don't know exactly what you mean by inexpensive - but if you want *really* cheap I have a suggestion. Logitech Z-5500 is a set of 5.1 PC speakers with S/PDIF input and Dolby Digital/DTS decoding. Being PC speakers they're not exactly suitable for audiophiles, but you get a really cheap speaker system that is plenty powerful and works well with 5.1 movies.

I bought mine based on a review in the Norwegian magazine Lyd & Bilde (means Audio & Video), which called it "almost free". At the time of the review the speakers had a price of 3600 NOK, but by the time I bought them they had dropped to 2400 NOK. As I'm a student I'm not exactly loaded with cash, so I found the Z-5500 to be excellent value for money.

The power output is supposedly 500W - this is of course "marketing watts" and not real watts.

I don't know where you're live, but in the US you can apparently get them at 230 USD.

I'll link you the Norwegian article I mentioned, translated using Google Translate. Support for Norwegian has just recently been added to Google Translate, so it's still somewhat unreliable. It'll be a hilarious read, even if you should decide to get a different set of speakers:

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=...

You'll find lots of reviews in English if you do a web search, of course. Most of the reviews I've read seem to agree that it's excellent value for money for movies and video games, but not so great for music.