Advantage to Optical - Stereo

I recently purchased an 42" LG lcd tv. The tv has an optical toslink input, and i am able to output optical from my laptop using an optical mini 3.5mm - optical toslink cable.

If i were infact passing a 5.1 signal from my laptop, would i even notice any benefits? Id be listening from the onboard tv speakers, which are just stereo?

The situation wouldnt change if i were outputting high def audio through a dvd player would it? My question still is, will optical offer any benefits even though my tv only has stereo speakers onboard?

 

I am trying to do the same connection as you did. (Mini toslink 3.5mm from laptop to sound receiver). I still dont get signal out from my computer. what laptop model do you have? how did you know your 3.5m jack was capable for that?
thank you!

 

I'm no expert but here's my $0.02:
I doubt there will be any sound improvement going from 5.1 to 2.0/2.1
If anything the sound might sound a little softer, I noticed similar effects when enabling 5.1 sound through KMplayer and playing it through a 2.1 speaker system. It has to do with the sound being split off a certain way.

Ideally I would enable 2.0 or 2.1 sound output from your laptop, that way nothing is lost.

 

I have an asus f3sv. I know my jack is capable of outputting digital as it says S/PDIF. For me, in the taskbar there is a sound icon. Realtek HD audio. I double click on that and set my output to digital.

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As for dt00d's comment

Im actually cheating a little here. I setup the scenario so it seems like my primary goal is outputting digital audio from my laptop, but really my main question is about the advantage of using an optical cable from my dvd player to TV. I only spoke about my laptop since this is a notebook forum

 

nevermind. Im an idiot

Its actually an output.

Thread Closed. Thanks for the replies

 

Short answer is no, you will not notice any improvement. I'm assuming your alternative is a coax cable from dvd player to tv. And now for the why: extra circuitry is needed to convert the electronic digital signal to optical at the player and then back at the tv. There's no way this can create an improvement, the difference may not be noticable but it will not be better.

The thing about optical is that you can use significantly longer cables, and not suffer transmission losses.

 

if the speakers are built into the tv, you needn't worry about sound quality.

try a home theater solution system from Bose or Polk Audio!

 

thanks guys. but i already determined that it was an output. In addition i know about home theaters and such. my cinema setup is in my basement. this is just a daily tv.

thanks for all the help. issue resolved