Last weekend (28th) I went to Richer Sounds and bought myself a few bits to upgrad my 2.0 Hi-Fi system to a 5.1 Surround Sound System! I kept the same floor-standing Eltax Symphony 6.3 front speakers, and added a Mordaunt-Short 905i centre speaker, a pair of Mordaunt-Short 903i’s as rear surrounds, and a Mordaunt-Short 308 Avant subwoofer. I swapped my Cambridge Audio A5 amplifier for a Cambridge Audio Azur 540R AV receiver, which is connected to my PC’s S/PDIF output using a very thick Cambridge Audio digital coaxial cable.

It took me quite a while (several hours) to get everything installed, and then another couple of hours to get the S/PDIF output on my motherboard to send the correct signal – AC3Filter helped a lot here, once I got it working.

Music still sounds great, although the extra bass is very welcome I also tried some DTS-encoded music, which sounds amazing, compared to normal stereo music. And of course movies sound awesome too. It makes a pretty big difference playing games too, once you get them working in surround-sound mode

For more photos of my desk, the speakers and the receiver, take a look on my Flickr.