inkonpark

I bought a DVD player which has built in dolby digital decoder for my friend.
What I want to know is this. My friend does not have a receiver, but has a small component system (CD, cassette, FM in one unit).
Can my friend get 5.1 dolby digital surround sound without a receiver? If not, why the DVD player equip built-in decoder?

Thanks in advance!!!

zargon

Well, you would need 6 amps to power the speakers, other than that it would work just fine.

dgc

Assuming he has a powered subwoofer, not only is powering the other 5 speakers going to be a problem, but how would he plan on connecting all 6 speakers? I don't think his current system has the appropriate connections for a 5.1 speaker setup.

Movie_Man

Your friend would need at least a "Dolby Digital Ready" receiver. This will have the 6 inputs on the back to match up with the 6 audio outputs on the back of the DVD player.
I'm not so sure you can still buy new DD-ready receivers anymore, but you can get a cheap receiver with DD built in for under $200.

palebluedot

Yes you can. Almost every brand of receiver out there has at least one model that has the inputs for multi channel. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to use DVD-Audio or SACD or your DD/DTS DVD player.

zargon

If you just wanted a dedicated DVD (CD also since a DVD player can play CDs) system, you could just pick up a 5 channel amp (6 if you don't have a powered sub) and then directly hook the DVD player up to the amp.

stevevt

If you went this route, you'd probably want a volume control thrown in the signal path somewhere.

Frank S

Then you end up spending more then just buying a DD/DTS receiver which would give you the best control and price/performance compared to seperate amps etc...