Using HT Speakers w/ PC...

[keitaro]

I've a home theater speaker set that I bought a long time ago. Well, I call it long enough that I have forgotten when I bought it.

Anyway, I was considering doing some wiring and was wondering if it's possible to hook up the HT speakers into the standard PC jacks that we find in so many motherboards today? Is it feasible? Is it worth it? I inquire about this since one of the limitation of using HT speakers as a higher quality replacement for PC speakers is that they cannot hook up with all of the audio outputs the onboard audio or audio cards can offer (ie. 5.1). So when you play games that utilizes all 5 speakers say Doom3, you only hear in stereo. However, the benefit of using HT speakers is the ability to decode audio via SPDIF coax or optical. And this works great when viewing movies.

I'd like to try this experiment out. I'm not technically sound when it comes to audio performance and signals. So things like Ohm, wattage, impedance, and the like are all foreign to me. If you believe this can work, I'd like to know if the materials I need (headphone jacks) can be found at a local RadioShack. Please explain in details and in english on any info you can share to give us insights on this.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

If your receiver has 6 or 8 channel direct input (will be 6 or 8 RCA inputs in a group together, usually color coded) then this will be really easy. Really cheap receivers and HTIB receivers tend not to have that though.

If you do have that type of connection, you can just use three 1/8" stereo to dual RCA adapters and hook up to your receiver. Your receiver will now be acting basically just as a set of comptuer speakers would (although there might be some crossover issues, but not a big deal).

If you don't have 6 channel direct input, the nice easy cheap solutions are hard to come by.

If you don't care too much about true surround sound, then you can just input a stereo signal to your receiver via a single dual RCA audio cable and then put the receiver on Prologic II or 5 channel stereo. This will have sound coming out all your speakers, but it isn't going to get you the "the guy is in back and to the right of me" experience that you're used to.

If that doesn't appeal to you and you want true surroundsound, then the option you have left (short of buying a new receiver) is to get a card that supports Dolby Digital Live (DDL). I'm using an HDA X-Mystique attached to my receiver right now and it works well. The turtlebeach Montego is another card that does DDL, but I'm not sure if it accomplishes it as well as the X-Mystique. These DDL cards basically take the surround sound audio info from games and then encode it into an DD AC3 stream in real time to be sent to your receiver. Your receiver can then decode it like it would a DVD track and get you true surround sound through a digital cable.

The X-Mystique can be hooked up via the optical cable that comes with it, or a digital coaxial cable. (It also has standard 1/8" analog stereo outputs for traditional computer speakers)

As for if it's worth it, I'd say it is

I'd confidently say that my system will blow away any "computer speakers" on the market and I'm enjoying them a lot.

 

[keitaro]

Thanks for the quick reply. But I think there's a little misunderstanding. The HT speakers I have has no multi-channel input. Inputs are from stereo sources as well as SPDIF coax and SPDIF optical. Basically the idea and question I have is hooking up the speakers itself to an audio jack. Like, the speakers would be driven by two sources: one from the computer's audio, one from the receiver. As much as I'd like to get a new audio card, I cannot stand to get another one for a while. I hope this explains the idea more.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: keitaro
Thanks for the quick reply. But I think there's a little misunderstanding. The HT speakers I have has no multi-channel input. Inputs are from stereo sources as well as SPDIF coax and SPDIF optical. Basically the idea and question I have is hooking up the speakers itself to an audio jack. Like, the speakers would be driven by two sources: one from the computer's audio, one from the receiver. As much as I'd like to get a new audio card, I cannot stand to get another one for a while. I hope this explains the idea more.

I'm not quite sure what you have in mind....

I'm telling you that in order to get surround sound to HT speakers you need to have a receiver with 6 channel direct input or get a card that does DDL in real time.

I wasn't really expecting you to have a receiver that had 6 channel direct input, which is why I said that it didn't come on entry level stuff.

HT speakers need to be amplified as you must know, so I don't see what you have in mind for connecting them directly to a computer. The amplifiers in your receiver need to have the signal fed to them so they can amplify it and give a powered signal to your speakers.

I almost sounds like you want to have the output from your computer audio jacks going directly to the speakers and then have the receiver hooked up to the speakers too? This wont work as the receiver needs to be fed the signal. It's not like the receiver is something you plug speakers into like an outlet. The power it gives off is the signal itself so it needs to be fed the input.

Maybe I'm totally not understanding what you're planning on doing.

Perhaps a diagram would help us understand what you're planning?

 

[keitaro]

PC audio jack +------->[speaker]<------+ HT receiver

Perhaps this is as close to a text-based diagram as I can get...

Should I draw it out? Or is this enough?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: keitaro
PC audio jack +------->[speaker]<------+ HT receiver

Perhaps this is as close to a text-based diagram as I can get...

Should I draw it out? Or is this enough?

If I'm understanding that diagram correctly, that's not going to work for the reasons I mentioned above.

The HT receiver isn't going to have any signal to amplify to send power to the speaker that way. The output from the computer will not be powerful enough to produce any output on your speakers.

 

[keitaro]

Okay, so from what you said, sending audio signals to the HT speakers wouldn't work due to insufficient power to drive the speakers themselves, right? I'm not worried about the receiver portion, as I know that part is already taken care of (SPDIF optical). If that's the case, oh well. I figure that it may possibly work to hook up the rear left and right audio channel from the sound card so I can get some rear audio when I play games. Ah well. Thanks for taking the time to answer.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

If you wanted to get fancy, you could get a couple of sonic t-amps in the mix and use those to power the speakers from the soundcard outputs. I think ecost had them for about $20 each.

Pretty crazy solution though.

If you want to do this right, get a receiver with 6 channel direct input for around $200 for a refub or get a soundcard that does DDL.

I don't even know how you're going to attempt to change 1/8" stereo outputs to two sets of speaker wires, but good luck.

 

[HDTVMan]

I run Optical out of my Mobo to a Kenwood Receiver to Infinity speakers. Its 5.1 but acoustically its perfect compared to any PC speaker setup I have ever had. I love it.

The receiver and speakers are actually my old surround sound system which I replaced with a Yamaha and JBL setup.

Now to add a pair of tactile transducers to my chair. They use them on Fighter simulators.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Bass shakers are a nice cheap alternative to some of the more expensive transducers if you want some shaking, keitaro

HDTVMan, how are you getting 5.1 out of your motherboard? Is it a soundstorm solution?