Home Theater Setup Question

[SarmadE]

I know this is kind of off topic and not really Apple Related, but I am trying to set up a Home Theater in my basement with an Apple TV and my friend gave me a Sony 5.1 Home Theater System with all 6 speakers. The problem is one of the rear speakers seems to be defective and I was wondering if it was possible to buy another speaker in its place. If so, does it have to be Sony? Does it have to be a rear speaker? or can it be a front speaker that will function as a rear speaker? If any of you can shed some light on this, it would be appreciated. I don't know too much about this myself.

Thanks

 

[satcomer]

A speaker is a speaker. You can use most any speaker as long as the speaker has the same type of connector in the back of it as is on the receivers ports.

Check your receiver if it has a optical output input port I would get an Optical cable and connect the Apple TV optical port to the receivers optical port.

 

[SarmadE]

Does the wattage output of the speaker not matter when choosing a speaker? I don't want something that sounds different then the rest of the channels.

And sadly it doesn't have optical. Just HDMI

 

[satcomer]

Does the wattage output of the speaker not matter when choosing a speaker? I don't want something that sounds different then the rest of the channels.

And sadly it doesn't have optical. Just HDMI

No it doesn't matter as long as the speaker output is equal or more that the receiver port.

What receiver are you using? No optical port, is it that old?

 

[SarmadE]

It's a Sony HT-SS360. It's about 5 years old but I got it for free so I can't complain.

And nevermind, it does have an optical input.

Thanks for the help

 

[hallux]

I don't see the need to use optical if you're connecting the ATV to the unit with HDMI anyway.

I do use optical to my receiver, but only because the receiver doesn't have HDMI (it's almost 15 years old, that's my next upgrade, maybe tax season), so I run HDMI to my TV then optical from the TV to the receiver, using the TV for the HDMI switching. My issue is that my new TV (a 2014 model) doesn't pass 5.1 from the HDMI in to the optical out, my old TV did.

 

[andreyirra]

You have to check if the HDMI port in your receiver is HDMI IN (which you can use to connect the aple tv and it's better than optical) or if it's just HDMI Out.

There are a lot of cheap receivers who are a Hybrid of a Dvd/bluray player with 5 speakers. Normally those only can use the speakers to reproduce 5.1 sound with DVD/Bluray is they dont have HDMI IN. There are others that just have a normal aux in and can only play the auxiliary source in stereo.

If you have a normal receiver with HDMI In then you are in luck because you just use an HDMI cable and you are on your way.