How to combine stereo and surround sound in one AV system

Even when you use perfect AV amplifiers you have to decide whether stereo or surround sound is more important. However, now you’ve got an opportunity to have everything together. For this, you need two amps. One of them will be used for surround sound and another one for stereo. The surround amplifier that is suitable for your needs has to be equipped with pre-outs for the left and right front speakers. They will bypass the device’s own power amplification and output an analogue signal to the stereo amp. Such a way of improving a sound is getting popular but its price is rather a disadvantage. Stereo amplifiers with dedicated AV inputs aren’t very expensive, however, consider that you will pay this money on top of the price of an AV receiver.

In fact, you can use any amp for such a purpose. However, it is better to get one with a dedicated input for this task. Usually, it is labelled as an AV input but some manufacturers use other names for this feature, so you must be attentive. It needs to be explained why a dedicated input is important. The point is, it will let you take full control over volume and some sonic character. It is great since additional volume controls add some distortion. The next thing you need is a pair of speakers. The best idea would be to get a set consisting of front-left and front-right ones.

How to set it up

This process is pretty simple, quick, and provides you plenty of benefits in the end. The sound quality you get is truly impressive which makes listening to music tracks and watching movies even more enjoyable. So, let’s start setting up. You have to plug right and left speakers in the AV amplifier. If you use any other units such as subwoofers or height speakers, just plug them in the appropriate terminals on the AV amp.

Next, use AV amp’s built-in, mic-driven set-up for calibrating the speakers. Usually, you need to specify what configuration has the speaker that you are using. However, there are lots of amplifiers that do not require it. After that, automatic speaker calibration can be begun.

If everything was done right and you did not get any error messages, you will have a volume-matched surround sound system with extremely balanced audio. Try it out and make sure you are fully satisfied with the sound. Then start connecting the video sources you need to the AV amp. It can be Sky, games console, or Blu-ray player. Speaking of music sources, they have to be connected with the stereo amp.