SB Live 5.1 center channel question

[Adrian Tung]

Is the center channel jack on the SB Live! a mono or stereo jack? I am considering "upgrading" my 4.1 speaker setup to a 5.1 by adding a center speaker (perhaps a PC Works or Altec Lansing ACS33). If the center channel is only mono then I most probably will only get sound out from one speaker and I'll need to get/make converter for it.


Thanks,
atwl

 

[Noriaki]

The 5.1s have right/left front in a stereo minijack, right/left rear in a stereo minijack and then they have that 3rd little jack that you can set to be a stereo minijack as well, and the two channels that come out of it are Sub and Center.

If you get a stereo-mini to dual RCA converter then one of the RCAs is Sub and one is Center (like white=Sub, red=Center or red=Sub, white=Center I don't remember which of the two it is). So yes the Center is mono signal.

 

[Adrian Tung]

I wouldn't have problems if I made a Stereo-to-Mono jack and hooked up a 2.1 speaker to the center channel, right? After all, the crossover circuit should separate the signals for the sub and satellites, no?


atwl

 

[Noriaki]

That should work fine.

You take the mono Center signal and copy it to both inputs on the 2.1 set and it'll work fine....I don't know if the SBLive! Value supports large speaker mode though, so the center channel set's sub might not see much use.

Edit: If you didn't know, Large speaker mode means that the main speakers all have bass drivers as well as mid and high range, you of course have a sub for a real punch of low frequency, but in Large Speaker mode any speaker can output lows. You'd need this for a separate sub on your center set.
If the SBlive only uses small speaker mode it won't send low frequency effects to the Center. I'm not sure which it does.