Safe To Hook Up Powered Stereo Subwoofer To Comp?

Questi4110

Senior member
Nov 20, 2001
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I want to hook up my powered subwoofer that came with my Philips stereo system. However, I am not sure if this will somehow blow out my sound card and/or my motherboard.

I know one way to do this is to get a miniplug adapter and then put that into the back of the sound card.

I am going to do it my way: I split the subwoofer cable and open up my headphones. Each side of the headphones has a small speaker. On one of those speakers I will solder in that split cable so that the sound is given to the subwoofer instead of the headphone speaker. Then i will hook up my subwoofer through the headphone cable into my sound card.

I have done this before but not with headphones and not with a powered subwoofer. I used an old crappy PC speaker and rewired that to a non-powered stereo speaker (those that are 5' tall) - this works great. However, I am not sure if the powered subwoofer setup is safe.

Please Help

THANKS
 

kursplat

Golden Member
May 2, 2000
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this is so you can hear through the headphones and have the sub thumpin you ? should work. a powered speaker is a powered speaker . it's just an amp.
good luck
 

FallenRain

Junior Member
Sep 5, 2003
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It definately won't blow out the sound card or the motherboard. My friend has his sound system and his sub hooked up to his comp and he is doing just fine. So I don't see a problem...
 

Questi4110

Senior member
Nov 20, 2001
590
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its not to hear through the headphones. I will cut the lines to the headphones speakers and redirect them to the subwoofer so only the subwoofer speaker will work.

Any other reassuring opinions?

THANKS
 

PrincessGuard

Golden Member
Feb 5, 2001
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I'm still not sure why you need to connect the subwoofer through your headphones. It's not like the headphones will amplify the signal.
 

Questi4110

Senior member
Nov 20, 2001
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i'm not using the headphones to amplify the signal. i just dont want to go out and buy a $10 mini-jack converter so i'm gonna use the headphones as that. It is basically like me changing the wires from the coaxial one that the subwoofer provides to the mini-jack one that the headphones has. But, instead of connecting the headphone wire directly to the subwoofer wire, it must go through the headphones speakers since there are 4 wires.
 

kursplat

Golden Member
May 2, 2000
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But, instead of connecting the headphone wire directly to the subwoofer wire, it must go through the headphones speakers since there are 4 wires.
aren't there 4 wires because headphones have left and right channels ? if you want all the sound going through the sub only just tie both the + wires together and both the - wires together , go to radio shack (or local equivilent) and get a $3 - 1/4'' mini jack .
good luck
 

TheCorm

Diamond Member
Nov 5, 2000
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Certain amplifiers do send an electrical current through the wire though....but I have never heard of it damaging anything....I have shocked myself a couple of times and once it touched the case and caused the PC to turn off.
 

Need4Speed

Diamond Member
Dec 27, 1999
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most subs have line and speaker level inputs. if yours has both, use the speaker-level inputs. you can use the line level inputs, but because speaker level input is not constant, you copuld possibly damage the sub if the level got too high.