Speaker setup! Audio experts please help.

[de8212]

I think I will get a good quality bookshelf system and hook it up to my sound card. I have an sblive (not value) with the daughterboard. I need to know if sound will come out of my rear speakers and center channel when I play games, music, dvd's if it's run through the line out on the back of the soundcard to the rca's of the bookshelf system. If not, can I hook it up so that the sound comes out of all the speakers?
How do you people with a home typre setup connect it?
If not there's really no sense in me getting the bookshelf system, I'll just get good pc speakers.
FWIW I do not want to go the route of home theater reciever/cd plyer/etc. I already have one of those setups in my l/room. This will just be for my room.
Thanks.
de

 

[Madcowz]

well you can't achieve what you're looking for by simply hooking up the speakers directly to the soundcard UNLESS they were powered speakers. Even then, you would need to rig the setup as you can only plug in one speaker per line out. You can use a splitter but then left and right channels wouldn't be configured correctly. All in all, it isn't worth it unless you connect a home theatre receiver between your speakers and soundcard

 

[de8212]

Thanks, Mad. Great guide btw.
So what kind of connection does a seperate home theater receiver have to hook up to a sound card that a shelf system doesn't have. I really need to know cause I gotta get some sound soon. Headphones don't do justice to UT, etc.
de

 

[de8212]

Please, someone with a sblive card that has their pc hooked up to a stereo receiver. Just tell me exactly how it's run from the card to the receiver. From what output into what input.
thanks
de

 

[ArmenK]

if your only going to use a stereo receiver, just get a 1/8" stereo minijack to dual RCA cable. Hook up the minijack to your front speaker out on your SBLive and hook up the RCAs to any input on the Stereo receiver. You could use CD, Aux... whatever u want. But this is only for stereo sound, before u were asking about rear and center channels, did u change your mind? If your still want 5 channels you will have to get a home theatre receiver...

 

[de8212]

Thanks ArmenK. The only thing I can't figure out is why people say that I have to get a "home theater" receiver instead of a bookshelf system to get anything other than stereo sound. Please believe me, I'm not trying to sound like a smartbutt, however, what is the magical connection on the back of a receiver that a bookshelf system does not have? I currently have an onkyo 575x receiver in my living room. It's been a while since I have looked at the back of it but I don't remember seeing any kind of connection on it that I haven't seen on some of the upper end bookshelf systems.
If I have to I'll just go out and get one of those home theater in a box form aiwa, yamaha, etc. But I already have the aforementioned onkyo (along with the rest of the hometheater suff) so a bookshelf setup would be a better route, or so I thought.
Thanks for reading/responding.
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[Conroy9]

i'm confused about what you want to do
when i saw bookshelf system i assumed you had a simple stereo with 2 speakers

then you mentioned rear and center speakers - ???

if you want to hook up the sblive to a stereo system you just have to put the first lineout into one of the stereo inputs of your system (with a cable with stereo plug to 2 rca plugs)

if you want more, it depends on what sort of inputs this bookshelf system will have; the old (non 5.1) soundblasters won't have a center output

maybe you should just get good pc speakers - which will have inputs for the front and rear speakers and handle the crossover to a subwoofer

 

[megatexel]

I have a Live Drive and was planning on getting a Coax cable running from my computer to my reciever and using that? That would work right?

 

[de8212]

<< That would work right? >>


Well, I'm not familiar with the Live Drive so I wouldn't be the right one to ask. The bottom line is if it has some kind of audio Output on it then you should be able to connect it to a receiver. I think, anyway. It all gets confusing to me.
Conroy- I'm not even sure if it's worth explaining becuase I may just have to deal with regular comp. speakers.
I'm going to best buy/compusa today. Might just buy something that will just do the job.
Thanks to all who replied.
de

 

[Conroy9]

mega: that would work for watching dvd's
it probably won't work for surround sound in games, since the sblive can't encode into dolby digital anyway

 

[JoPalm]

Sounds like you should've just went with a 5.1 decoder sound card....hehe. Guess that saves all this hastle and stuff.
Are USB speakers good?

 

[kami]

I have bookshelf speakers connected to my computer...if you can do this, DO IT instead of buying computer speakers. Because these &quot;low end&quot; bookshelf speakers sound 20x better than the ProMedia's. I just had to buy a $4 cable. One end is a regular headphone type plug that fits into the back of my sound card, the other end is two phono plugs (red and white) for stereo. I connected those two to the back of my receiver labeled &quot;CD&quot; because I don't have anything else hooked up to the receiver. Then I just switch the receiver to play sound from the CD source. Voila.
don't plug it into the part labeled &quot;phono&quot; on the receiver...it will sound like sh!t.