3 Easy Ways to Convert Stereo Sound to Surround Sound

Do you want to go from stereo sound to surround sound but you’re not sure how to do it or where to start?

Surround sound can give you an immersive experience that you won’t get anywhere else. It lets you enjoy movies at home but with a theater-like feel. But having a surround sound system can be quite pricey.

The good news is that you can still have that surround sound experience without having to buy expensive equipment.

While it sounds complicated, there are several ways to convert stereo sound to surround sound, which involve easy steps and inexpensive techniques. Let’s jump straight to it!

Know the Difference between Stereo and Surround Sound

Every time the topic of audio channels comes up, most people get confused between stereo and mono. 

With mono, you have just one audio signal that uses a single audio channel for playing sounds or recording. Even if you use two speakers, an identical audio signal will be sent to both. On the other hand, stereo uses two distinct signals or streams – left and right.

With surround sound, upwards of two channels are used. It uses numerous audio tracks to provide you with a richer listening experience. 

Multi-channel audio and robust realism are awesome features of surround-sound multimedia speakers.

When playing music on your PC or via headsets, stereo is the most typical and well-known audio transmission format. 

Benefits of Having Surround Sound

While most of us are accustomed to stereo, anyone would certainly enjoy the benefits of having surround sound. 

When you’re watching a movie or a TV show, the sound has a huge impact on your experience. With surround sound, you get a more immersive and interactive experience. 

Every conversation, noise, and effect, such as footsteps, vehicles approaching, gunshots, explosions, waves crashing on the shore, birds chirping, and the like, will sound more realistic with surround sound.

It’d be as if you’re watching in a movie theater.

3 Ways to Convert Stereo Sound to Surround Sound

There are several ways to convert stereo sound to surround sound, and some of these methods involve complicated steps and pricey equipment. 

But there are a few ways to do it easily with inexpensive techniques.

• Using software for videos, such as VLC or Video Converter Studio
• Utilizing audacity for audio
• Using a converter to switch from Stereo to surround sound in general

I’ll be discussing each of these methods in detail so you can choose one that you think would work for you best.

Using Video Software

One of the easiest ways to convert stereo sound to surround sound is by using video software. Some examples of software you can use include VLC Studio and Video Converter Studio.

For this, I would recommend using DSP Quattro, which is the best software for converting stereo to surround sound.

Here are the steps to follow to do the conversion using video software:

1. For this, you need to use Virtual Audio Cable. Choose the MP3 or WAV files for conversion under the input source. Check the conversion by going into your PC’s sound settings and configuring the output device to virtual cord viable.
2. Use a decoder for surround sound and a sound conversion device to convert to AC3.
3. Then convert AC3 into DTS. You can use DSP Quattro to transform the AC3 doc back to Stereo, and six-channel DTS surround sound.
4. Using a Virtual Audio Cable, convert the DTS file into Surround Sound AC3 and six-channel surround sound using a decoding device.
5. To try it on your home theater surround sound system, use a decoding device for surround sound to transform the AC3 file to a six-channel Dolby digital surround sound and then transform it into an MKV container.

Using Audacity

While it may take some expertise and experience to transform stereo to surround sound in Audacity, it’ll work out well as long as you precisely follow the steps below:

1. Find out how many audio channels are there in your stereo file by opening it in Audacity. Most stereo files include two audio streams, so you must choose stereo: two-channel output from the drop-down selection to obtain a stereo file.
2. Go to channels and use the direct channel mixing setting after transforming stereo to stereo stream output.
3. Turn your stereo clip into stereo stream output with two channels in Audacity by changing stereo to surround sound.
4. Due to the stereo’s two-channel output, Audacity’s stereo-to-surround sound conversion necessitates an additional conversion step. This involves combining the stereo right and stereo left streams to create four distinct audio channels.
5. At this point, the screen will display two empty records with stereo at the pinnacle. Your audio file will be changed to the stereo right and stereo left channels when you pick the stereo: two-channel mix from the drop-down slider.
6. Then stereo records can be manually moved underneath the stereo right and stereo left recordings. These four different audio files are now ready for Audacity’s stereo-to-surround sound conversion.

Using a Converter

Another popular and easy approach to converting stereo sound to surround sound is by using a converter.

You can use your six speakers without cutting wires if you have a converter. It transforms three 1/8 audio mini-plug jack connections for your surround sound system from your regular stereo RCA jacks.

The fact that some converters are bi-directional is also a plus. It implies that a signal can be sent to either input and then a transformed signal can be obtained from the other.

Final Thoughts

There’s nothing like having surround sound while watching your favorite movies at home because it gives you an immersive and theater-like experience without having to leave the house.

Once you get surround sound, I doubt you’ll ever want to go back to stereo sound again. 

I hope this article was helpful. When you’ve successfully converted stereo to surround sound, let me know in the comments which method you used.