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Originally Posted by Electro
All Linux programs will only output 2 channels unless the source has encoded 6 channels. Outputting to 6 channels all the time will not work because each program have their way of handling ALSA requests. To make it even worst, your on-board sound can only handle one PCM stream at a time, so you have to use artd or esound to play multiple PCM streams at the same time.
An example to output 6 channels.
mplayer -ao alsa:device=surround51 -channels 6 dvd://
Outputting 6 channels all the time screws the quality of sound when hearing a two channel sound file. Audiophilies normally hear from only two channels.
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You can transparently output from a 2channel audio to 6 channels using alsa dmix.
(
http://alsa.opensrc.org/) Ofcourse this is done in software. You can just copy the channels to the other
speakers or fade them or anything.
You are right though that it is not the best thing to do from accoustic view.
Also the dmix plugin (default plugin in the newer alsa versions) supports mixing (as its name implies) and
you don't need arts or esound anymore.
