I have a toshiba sd-4900 that has outputs for 5.1 dolby on the back. How do i hook these up? Do I just plug speakers into them or do they have to go to an amp or receiver first? The guy at Best Buy told me all i have to do is plug speakers into them but that they don't sell speakers like that.
I suppose you are talking about 6 channel outputs. They are not for speakers, they should got to a 5.1 receiver's 6 channel direct inputs. If your receiver doesn't have 6 channel direct inputs you can use coax or digital out.
Is hooking up all 6 RCA(5.1) plugs into a reciever going to sound better than 1 digital coax? if not how so? becuase wouldnt a RCA individualy connected to a reciever transfer the signal better? my dvd player was a surround sound system with a sub. right now I got it hooked up with coax. also does having the dvd player hooked up to a digital reciever through coax by-pass all the dvd player's setup such as: sound configs, sound delay, eq, sound mode (arena, live, cave), bass boost and clear boost?
If you connect direct 6 RCA plugs to receiver, it means the decoder in your dvd player will be used to decode the sound. If you connect via coax or optical, receiver will decode. I suppose the sound quality depends the quality of the decoders of the receiver and the dvd player if it would able to be distinguished. Sound effects of the *dvd player* should be still valid if you use coax. As far as I know, If you use 6 RCA, receiver's effects wouldn't be used.
Depends on the reciever, but generally recievers apply the "effects" after the signal has been decoded. 6xRCA allows you to playback High definition DVD audio disks in their full glory.
You can get speakers that do plug straight into an RCA connection, but these unpowered speakers are going to be pretty quiet. You don't have to use a reciever.. any powered speaker that can hook up is fine, such as 3x Midi stereo systems one for each pair of RCA's.
Err.. I mean 3 individual "mini" or "Micro" stereo systems. If you have 3 stereos (basically any powered speaker setup with an RCA input), hook each one up to a pair of RCA's on the back of the DVD player.
Okay what the 6 channel inputs allow you to do is play advanced resolution surround feeds from DVD Audio discs and SACD discs. You cannot play them through the digital coaxial or optical cables. You need 6 RCA cables going into your multi-channel inputs on your receiver. Some DVD Audio players now have 8 channel outputs as well, which might be overkill. Those artists like NIN and REM who have released DVD-Audio titles are certainly not going to go back and re-remix them from 5.1 into 7.1 If you're not planning on buying DVD-Audio or SACD discs then don't spend all that money on buying three good pairs of RCA cables, just use a nice $70 Ixos digital coaxial cable. I have a Pioneer DV-45 DVD Audio player and to be honest most of the time I listen to the DTS track instead of the advanced resolution track, through my coaxial instead of the multi-channel inputs. When you go to multi-channel, on the Pionner 1014TX at least, you cannot use any other features like multi-channel stereo, THX off and on, etc., you can only adjust channel volume.