Is it possible to play a stereo mp3 on a 5.1 card with surround sound effects?

[-=ViBeZ=-]

Hi guys,

1st I must apologise for this simple question. I realise there is a wealth of information on this board. But most of it goes over my head :(

I have an K8N Neo Platinum nforce3 mobo that supports 5.1 sound & I have a 5.1 speaker setup. The problem is that most of my mp3s are in stereo. I would really like to take advantage of the 5.1 speaker setup I have. Is there a plugin for winamp that would take a stereo mp3 source & play it in 5.1 suround sound? Or would I have to re-encode all my mp3's? If so, can you suggest a good guide for batch conversion.

Thanks in advance

[ursamtl]

I think there are a couple of plugins for Winamp but I'm not sure since I rarely use it for playback. I recommend something called Foobar 2000. It's a free program with a lot of available enhancements and third-party plugins. It comes with a simple surround plugin that's actually not bad. It's not quite as "sexy" as Winamp" (no skins, etc.) but it's far more powerful as an audio player for PCs.

[-=ViBeZ=-]

thanks I'll check foobar out

EDIT:: so how do I setup foobar for surround sound. At the moment I am using direct sound 2 & enables simple surround in the dsp effects. But it still has no sourround sound effect

[eb]

Try to instal AC3Filter and set it as default in your system.
Then playing mp3 in MPC or mplayer2.exe from WMPfolder, system can automaticly play them in AC35.1 after setting AC3Filter see http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=84330.

There can be problem that mplayer2 can use too much filters to process audio, uninstal them or change the merit of this filters.

eb

[-=ViBeZ=-]

thanks i'll try that tomorrow. I guess this wont work with winamp5?

Can I use matrix mixer in this setup at all?
http://matrix-mixer.sourceforge.net/

[eb]

Yes you can. I have problem with LFE in this case.
Try also ffdshow audio filter,
eb

[ursamtl]

Originally posted by -=ViBeZ=-
thanks I'll check foobar out

EDIT:: so how do I setup foobar for surround sound. At the moment I am using direct sound 2 & enables simple surround in the dsp effects. But it still has no sourround sound effect

Actually you're right. Sorry about that. I double checked this and Simple Surround doesn't work through my back speakers. When I first tried it, the effect seemed to work. Anybody know anything about this?