What to use to connect amp to sound card?

[Gunslinger08]

Alright, I'm connecting my amp to my sound card. Should I go from the Line Out on my sound blaster live to an adapter which splits it into 2 female RCA jacks, then connect those to the RCA jacks on the amp? Or will that not work?

Josh

 

[Crusty]

What kind of amp? Digital, if so use the spdif connector, if not the line-out solution would work too.

 

[nord1899]

Yeah, what ^^ said.

 

[Gunslinger08]

It's a car amp. Are most of them analog, unless otherwise stated? It's a Power Acoustik Farenheit Q2-1800.

Josh

 

[Crusty]

Should I go from the Line Out on my sound blaster live to an adapter which splits it into 2 female RCA jacks, then connect those to the RCA jacks on the amp?

That'll work perfectly!!

 

[Colt45]

Your original plan will be fine, but how do you plan on powering the car amp?

big transformer, bridge, & a couple caps? You'll probably need quite a few amps to run it.. (how many watts is this thing?)

 

[Gunslinger08]

Originally posted by: Colt45
Your original plan will be fine, but how do you plan on powering the car amp?

big transformer, bridge, & a couple caps? You'll probably need quite a few amps to run it.. (how many watts is this thing?)

DC power supply from Radio Shack. It's handles up to a 25 Amp draw. It comes with a standard 110v/120v AC plug-in, so I'm hoping it'll work fine on that, and not require anything special for powering it.

Only thing I have left to work out is whether or not I need something connected to the remote wire terminal to turn it on/off. If I do, then I'll run a +12V wire from a molex connector in my PSU to the terminal.


I enjoy making these projects for myself.. they teach me about interesting things.

Josh

 

[Gunslinger08]

By the way, the amp is 370 watts x 2 RMS.. though, coming from Power Acoustik, that's probably not a very true rating. Maybe it's more like 300x2 or so.

Check this out for info on the amp.

Josh

 

[mithrandir2001]

I tried that line out -> amp via the 2 female RCA jack route with my (old) Aureal Vortex2 card and encountered a persistent humming sound when playing through the stereo. Could have been an impedance issue.

BTW, where do you get the digital out -> digital in cable? It would need a mini-headphone jack on one end and a RCA jack on the other.

 

[Gunslinger08]

My line out is a 1/8" jack. I just got a cable from Radio Shack that goes from that to two female RCA jacks.

Josh

 

[Crusty]

The digital out is on all new sound cards, Sb Live!, Santa Cruz, Audigy, Extigy, Seismic Edge, Acoustic Edge....many more! The cable is a 1/8 mono(stereo will work too) to one rca plug. Should be able to buy them at Radio Shack, if not take a trip to Home Depot or the like and buy some cable and connectors and solder the stuff together.

 

[Gunslinger08]

Hm... hoping this works. Can't wait to get the DC PSU on Friday and try it out. I'm glad Radio Shack lets you return pretty much anything if it isn't what you need.

Josh

 

[crawford]

keep us updated, ive always wanted to try that.

 

[Gunslinger08]

Originally posted by: crawford
keep us updated, ive always wanted to try that.

Will do. I just hooked it up to an old AT power supply I had.. amp turned on, but soon shut off. Was only getting 8 amps from the PSU. Hopefully 25 will be enough. :{

Josh