Wii U Surround Issues

1 minute read

I finally picked up a Wii U since the price has come down a bit and I’m hankering to play Breath of the Wild. Hooked it up to my TV + 5.1 surround sound receiver system and… 3 of 5 channels 😞

A little bit of searching found this thread on NeoGAF with the solution: connect the Wii U directly to the surround receiver. Passthrough from the TV will not work due to the formats (un)supported by the Wii U.

Posting here in the hopes that it might be useful to somebody else with this new and cutting-edge technology ;)

Physical setup:

WiiU > HDMI > AV Receiver/HTiB > HDMI > TV/Monitor
                   |
	      5.1 Sound (LPCM only)

Useful information:

Wii U Surround Sound Guide.

  • The Wii U only supports LPCM 1.0, 2.0 and 5.1
  • The Wii U does not support any licensed surround formats: DPII, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, DTS, DTS-HD etc.
  • The Wii U does not have an optical out port.
  • Optical out from your TV/Monitor into your receiver/HTiB will not produce 5.1
  • For Wii U use, only one AV port on the back is active. If you output HDMI to your TV, the AV Multi Out analogue output will be disabled.
  • It is LPCM 5.1 via HDMI to a supporting receiver or nothing.
  • Firmware 4.0.0 adds DPII back into Wii Mode.

Updated: