Bookshelf and Sub to PC

davidzvi

The pictures and comments on some retail sites have me a little confused.

Can I run the audio out of my PC into a Sub and have it power the bookshelf speakers?

Thinking along the lines of PSW10 or PSW111 and LT-1 or 2.

davidzvi

Or can I at least feed the PC audio into either the PSW10/PSW111 and feed "powered" bookshelf speakers?

obieone

Welcome to the forum, and NO, you need an AVR, or stereo receiver to get sound out of home audio speakers.
In order for you to get sound out of any speaker, you need amplification. 2.1 systems for PC's have an amp in the subwoofer. 2.0 stereo speakers have the amp in the '1st' speaker.
And NO, you can't use a PC set-up to power home audio speakers.
Good baseline AVR's can be found for $200+. Pioneer, Onkyo, Yamaha, Denon are good brands.

davidzvi

obieone wrote: »

Welcome to the forum, and NO, you need an AVR, or stereo receiver to get sound out of home audio speakers.
In order for you to get sound out of any speaker, you need amplification. 2.1 systems for PC's have an amp in the subwoofer. 2.0 stereo speakers have the amp in the '1st' speaker.
And NO, you can't use a PC set-up to power home audio speakers.
Good baseline AVR's can be found for $200+. Pioneer, Onkyo, Yamaha, Denon are good brands.

Thanks obieone.

I know they need some Amp, I just wasn't sure if the Amp in the PSW10/PSW110 sub would power the sats.

Will the Sub take the line level signal from my sound card? The Sub/center port?

RJaco

I did the same thing a while back. I bought a used Adcom amp for my speakers. Then was given a sub later on. This is my posts on help getting the sub hooked up. Hope it helps.

http://tinyurl.com/7gcob8m

Vuroth

obieone wrote: »

Welcome to the forum, and NO, you need an AVR, or stereo receiver to get sound out of home audio speakers.
Good baseline AVR's can be found for $200+. Pioneer, Onkyo, Yamaha, Denon are good brands.

Sorry for the hijack.

Doesn't that make it pretty cost-ineffective to use home audio speakers with the PC? I mean, I imagine the sound would be much better (vs typical PC speaker setups), but as a pretty significant premium.

Maybe I'm missing something, but unless you've got an old stereo receiver lying around, you're probably better off putting the money into PC-specific speakers, right?

tonyb

Vuroth wrote: »

Maybe I'm missing something, but unless you've got an old stereo receiver lying around, you're probably better off putting the money into PC-specific speakers, right?

If you want PC specific speakers, sure, but the OP has said he wants bookies and a sub. Lots of used receivers out there for cheap, some even cheaper than the price of good computer speakers. Just depends on your audio path you choose.

Mon40CSMM10

And NO, you can't use a PC set-up to power home audio speakers.

Depends on the speakers, what the sensitivity is. I have run tests and successfully powered both Polk Audio M10s and Sony SS-B1000s just off the built in soundcard amplifer (Creative Xtreme Audio).

Doing so requires an RCA stereo Y-cable and the following modification process:

1. Cut off the red and white RCA connectors and discard them.
2. Use a wire stripper to remove about 1 and 3/8 inch of the black insulation from where each RCA connector was cut off.
3. Each of the two wires now has wire strands around a red or white insulated smaller wire.
4. For each wire, separate the wire strands from around the red or white insulated wire and twist those wire strands together.
5. For each wire, use a wire stripper to remove about 3/8 inch insulation from the smaller red or white insulated wire.
6. For each wire, twist the strands together but do not twist those strands to the larger twisted strands.
7. For each speaker--red or white with the smaller twisted strands goes into the positive terminal, the larger twisted strands goes into the negative terminal. If the Y-cable was done correctly, the white should go to the left speaker terminal and the red should go to the rigth speaker terminal. (These terminals may be spring clips or binding posts.)
8. The stereo 3/8 inch miniplug side of the modified Y-cable goes into the front speaker output on the sound card.

Done. Bookshelf speakers are now connected to the PC.

It's not going to give noise complaint level sound but it will still sound good if the sound card amplifier has a decent amount of power. As an added benefit, the sound will lack the excessive boominess often characteristic of some amplified 2.1 subwoofer/smaller satellite computer speakers. The sound will have also have more lower bass than the cheap smaller powered speakers without an included subwoofer that come in the box with some new computers.

Syndil

Plus if you can find some cheap, used bookies and a sub, why not use them for the PC? Don't think I would hook them directly to my soundcard as Mon40CSMM10 has done, though. If you have a sub with RCA inputs and outputs, you could use a 3.5mm-to-RCA cable from the PC to the sub, and then use the sub's RCA outputs to hook up a small amplifier, like an Adcom 535. I think that would be the cheapest way to do it. Not the best, but the cheapest, and it would still sound miles better than a standard set of PC speakers.