[gixer-boy]

I have recently changed my AMP to a Marantz 5400 from a Yamaha A3090, First problem I had was a demodulator, this is now sorted, but I now find that non AC3 disks will not play Dolby surround signal, have tried all outputs on player and the only thing I find is the Menu on player will not let me set up digital output?

Gary

P.S this is only on the Laser disk side DVD works fine

[LV426]

A Dolby Surround signal is actually just stereo. It contains only two channels of information.

Dolby Surround is actually a process performed on a stereo signal to produce a surround effect. Movies with Dolby Surround logos have simply got stereo soundtracks where the producers, with an understanding of how the surround process works, carefully mix the stereo signal in such a way as to produce predictable effects from this process.

All you need from your LD player to your amp is a regular, analog stereo cable pair. The amp does the rest, provided you have set it up to do so for this source. Use Dolby ProLogic or ProLogic 2.

If the soundtrack is not specially mixed in the way described, but it is stereo, then there will still be some rear and centre channel presence, but the rears will be much more subtle.

If the soundtrack is mono, expect your amp to route pretty much everything to your centre speaker.

[gmt steve]

But you will get better sound quality via digital, since there will be no unescessery D/A and A/D conversions. You should be able to get a digital stereo/surround mix via the digital out. I can only think that you have perhaps got the outputs mixed up.
Dolby Digital from LD will be via the RF out. Dolby Surround and DTS from LD will be via, either an optical or coaxial digital out, as will all formats from DVD. To complicate matters, you have an external De-modulator. This will be fed by the aformentioned RF out of the LD, but the de-mod's output will be via either optical or coaxial digital out, not RF.
So there will be two digital connections to make into your Marantz. Oh and if you want the commentary tracks on DD LDs you will need to make the analogue stereo connections that Nigel mentioned, since on NTSC LDs the commentary tracks are in analogue only.

[gixer-boy]

Guys thanks for your reply I have connected to the amp via both Digital coaxial and Optical and have Rf going to a Demod, And if I understand what you are telling me where the front panel of my Marantz shows 5/6 speakers for DVD for laser it will only show two and the amp will still be decoding signal?

[LV426]

If I recall correctly, the Marantz is not displaying how many channels of sound it is outputting; it is showing how many channels are present on the input - which, for Dolby Prologic, Surround, etc, is two.

[gixer-boy]

Thanks Nigel