Does the t61 support surround sound?

I wanted to buy the Logitech X-540 5.1 speakers. It has no digital inputs (s/pdif), it only has the 3.5mm analog input. So, would i get true surround sound if i just plug these speakers into my t61's headphone jack?

thanks

 

The advanced mini dock has s/pdif. I am assuming you're not going to be carrying around a 5.1 speaker setup.

 

your assumption is correct. So i can plug the 3.5mm line in jack into the s/pdif socket of the mini dock? and would this give me surround sound?

 

no you would plug a coaxial rca cable into the spdif jack on the dock.

 

well, as i said before, the speakers that Iam looking have dont have a digital input. all they have is the line in jack. if you go to the link i posted above, you will see what I am talking about. I am a little confused here. Since the speakers themselves dont support s/pdif how are they labeled as surround sound?

 

Well after looking here and seeing the supplied cords I do not think you will be able to get true surround sound using a laptop. You would need a pci soundcard in a PC case with all the surround sound 3.5mm jacks. But I guess those speakers can still emulate surround sound from a 2 channel source. There may be some external box of some sort that would hook up to an spdif jack and have all the outputs for surround sound.

just because its surround sound does not mean the signal has to be digital. from what i can tell each speaker has its own dedicated wire, therefore the signal can be analog for each one. its only a medium range speaker set i wouldn't expect it to support a digital signal. that would require a receiver of some sort as well to decode the signal.

 

in order to get "surround sound" using analog cables with this particular speaker system......the sound card would need to have three stereo outputs.......one for the fronts, one for the rears and one for the center channel.

 

I see, so basically i will hear sound only from two speakers not 5 when i plug the one cord into the dock's headphone jack. I think the matrix mode of the speakers is there to solve this issue.

 

you'll definitely hear sound from all 5 speakers using one stereo jack, it just will not be surround sound.

 

Is there some kind of adapter that recieves the 3 inputs and outputs s/pdif?

 

you have a few options...what I personally would do is get a USB sound card. Your second option is getting a PC CARD/Express card sound card.

Creative labs makes an excellent product and you can usually get a pretty good deal on newegg.

 

whoops, sorry I read that wrong...if you want to convert 6 channels of analog audio to a digital signal...it can be done, but its not the greatest idea. But as I mentioned before, you're best off getting another sound card.