Listening to 5.1 channel CDs on Windows XP

[Mutley]

I got the (new?) double CD of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds today. Its apparently been remixed in 5.1 surround sound.

Any idea what I can use to listen to that on a Windows XP PC?

I have a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 connected to a 5.1 channel speaker system, and I've got winamp 5 and WMP10 installed...

Any help appreciated,

Mut.

[Dav0s]

wmp doesnt do it??

[Nemeliza]

media player should be able to play 5.1 audio with no problems.

[Howard]

If it's a SACD then no dice I'm affraid. It's plain vanilla stereo for you

[Mutley]

Yeah, just figured that out. A case of RTFM. The discs are two-layered. One layer containing the remastered stereo for "normal" CD, the second remastered 5.1 surround sound for SA-CD. Bummer.

So, in general WMP should be able to play 5.1 sound anyway? I thought you had to download a paid-for plugin to make that work. I think winamp is supposed to do it.

[Skinleech]

Just use ac3filter (google it) which will give you 5.1/DTS via mediaplayer on any 5.1 cds\dvds\avis etc that you have.

Not for the SACD version of War.. though, as you need an SACD player for that.

[stud]

If you have WinDVD 7, you have the ability to up sample any stereo source into 5.1 - yet again not the same as the version you want, but listening to MP3s in 5.1 is quite cool