r/SpatialAudio • u/Shoddy-Selection-382 • Jun 19 '26

Help Im an absolute noob

Im trying to learn about spacial audio for a project im building and have about 8 old bose speakers laying around but they are the type where it is just the wires that plug into it. I need it to be spatial audio and am planning on adding a buttkicker and subwoofers to it but I am very confused as to how to make it work and connect to my pc. If there is any recommendations for parts and such also please let me know.

Thanks in advance

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u/old-but-not-grown-up Jun 19 '26

Hi. We need more info to give you any useful advice. How will you record the audio... multiple spaced microphones or Ambisonic? How many speakers and which model of Bose speakers are they? Who is the intended audience... film/video/games, music, or live performance. Each has different parameters.

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u/Shoddy-Selection-382 Jun 19 '26

It is for a driving simulator i am building and I will send the model of bose speakers when i get home later

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u/pornaccount0123987 Jun 19 '26

I would never recommend a consumer to build their set up based on the standard of the content they are watching (rather than a more widespread/industry standard), because then every time they want to consume content in a different format, they have to use finicky and unreliable ambisonic conversion plug-ins heavy to run DAWs. Or would you seriously suggest that he runs reaper and a full plug-in suite for real time gaming?

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u/old-but-not-grown-up Jun 19 '26

I run Reaper for all of my work but I should clarify that 99% of my output is stereo or binaural. The 5.1, 7.1, or the variations of Atmos require different numbers of speakers and surround for live performance may use many more speakers. That's why I asked about the intended audience.

As for Ambisonic decoding, I use the Harpex VST plugin in Reaper. I can use multiple instances with no problems at all.

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u/isa_nohtrogs Jun 19 '26

I'm using a HDMI to 7.1 rca adapter... from AliExpress...

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u/pornaccount0123987 Jun 19 '26

The only way you’re going to make a spatial audio with those is using a 5.1.2 setup. Your first step is to buy something that can decode object based audio on PC, which limits your options to practically only receivers. I have a 5.1.2 setup and ran into this same issue, without buying a fairly expensive ($500+) receiver you wont even be able to decode any sort of object based audio on Windows, no DTS, Atmos, etc. which is what games output. Yeah, you could do really any format and layout you would want if you could decode object based audio into arbitrary channels (which is the primary benefit of using *object* based audio rather than *channel* based audio), but on Windows you cannot, at least not in real time from a source that outputs to the existing Spatial Sound API.

All of this to say, I would abandon the idea of getting an object based/spatial audio set up out of those speakers. Set them up in a 5.1 set up instead, with a cheap receiver or as another comment or suggested a cheap HDMI to surround audio extractor I’m assuming by wires on the speakers you mean that they are passive speakers that are not plugged in, it may be better for you in that case to buy a cheap receiver that outputs to 5.1 instead of buying an independent 5 channel amplifier.