HDMI is fine, and Dolby Surround-encoded stereo is Dolby Surround-encoded stereo, no matter what the format (as far as I know).
I would only caution that post-2014 Dolby Surround (i.e., the "Dolby Surround" option on AVRs manufactured 2014 and after) is a totally different animal than
old Dolby Surround (which is what was used to encode those Dolby Surround CDs). A Dolby Surround CD might or might not sound good when played back via post-2014 Dolby Surround (which is essentially an Atmos upmixer), but it almost certainly won't decode as the original mixing engineers intended.
I've been trying to find answer to this one, so I'll throw it to the forum: What is the difference between Dolby Surround (the 2014 incarnation) and Dolby Pro Logic II in terms of channel placement? I'm thinking of buying a new AV receiver and most are now Dolby Surround only. Also, how well...
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