Thanks - that eases my mind considerably! I was starting to do a bit of
post-rationalisation myself and coming to the view that I could hardly
grumble for £50. It just means I will need to keep my existing audio system
"in parallel" for playing music CDs using the digital out on the DVD Player,
and switching to 5.1 only when I play DVD films.

But I did rather hint to my wife that the new set up would allow me to shift
the old Wharfedale speakers out of the living room, and so now I'm going to
have to break the bad news to her....

All the best
Steve

"Tim S Kemp" wrote in message
...
Steve W wrote:
Thanks for the responses. Let me see if I have got this right. A
typical DVD Player with 5.1 system OUGHT to handle stereo sources (eg
CDs and MP3 CDROMs) in one of the following two ways:

1. If the two front speakers are full range, then the sound signals
can go out as conventional L/R stereo (2.0)

2. If the two front speakers are mid/upper range only, then there
should be an option on the DVD player to set the speakers as "small"
or "satellite" and send sound as L and R plus central subwoofer (2.1)

Does that sound right? Well, I don't seem to have this option on my
DVD Player........


Right and wrong. Yes on my Panny S75 I have a bass management option, but
then it's designed for use with different speakers and secondary use with
CD
and DVD-A. And it wasn't 50 quid.

Your DVD player decodes 6 channels from a dolby digital stream and passes
them to a 6 channel amp in the subwoofer. It probably has no processing
internally. So it's probably very good value for money for watching films.
So be happy, and as mentioned elsewhere save up for a bigger and more
flexible system later. In the mean time enjoy your intro to surround....


--
"Get a paper bag"