Whats the real difference between 2ch & 6ch AC3?

[Commander XJL]

What is the difference between 2ch and 6ch AC3?

[Doom9]

ch = channel. so 2ch = 2 discrete channels, or in other words: front left and front right speakers of your 5.1 setup (5.1 means: front left, front right, front center, rear left, rear right, and a subwoofer (that's the .1)). Of course.. almost all 2ch sources are dolby surround encoded so if your receiver supports that you get 4 channels, the center and the rear channels (it's a mono signal for the rear.. you get the same from both speakers) is "matrixed" into the 2 channels. 6ch = 6 discrete channel so you have a discrete track for each of the speakers I mentioned above.