An information handling system includes a signal processor such as an audio accelerator based sub-system with the capabilities to define output connectors such that the same set of connectors which provide, for example, home theatre AC3 (Dolby Digital) decoded signals (front, rear, cent/LFE) can provide, for example, 3 discrete stereo channels meant to be routed to different zones in, for example, a living or business space. The information handling system can provide a home theatre experience with one application, taking advantage of audio accelerator capabilities for AC3 signal decode, and provide multi-zone audio distribution, taking advantage of audio accelerator capabilities for decoding multiple streams of compressed digital audio. Home computing architectures that utilize a consumer personal computer (PC) are, thus, now suitable as the audio storage and manipulation center. In one embodiment, the PC provides DSP/decode pre-amplification functions and routes audio output to a generic 6-channel amplifier. In one embodiment, the system also includes a simple to use user interface (UI) to (i) select and initiate processing of multiple streams of audio for playback and (ii) map routing of the audio signals to stereo signal compatible jacks. Each pair of stereo output signals can be associated with a zone. Each zone can be represented in the UI such that the user can direct the desired audio stream to the desired zone. In another embodiment such as a broadcast situation, one stream can be sent to multiple zones, accomplishing distributed coverage with one audio stream.