confused...

**tanners** · 04-19-2007, 10:32 AM

Hello again,

I am very confused with the external sound card topic. I was looking for audigy 2nx ot turtle beach roadie.. for following set up.

carpc to usb soundcard - to 2 amplifiers
1 amp rckford 450.4 for 4 speakers.
1 amp rockford 600.1 sub amp for 1 rockford 12" p3 sub

planning to connect HU to line in of the pc. I am planning to take the output from headphone output of the sound cards and feed them to amps. or shud i use the 4 channels (right,left,center,sub)?

am i on the right track.. for more than decent and loud and clear music ?

nething I shud change.. ??
I am slo having hard time finding either cards.. mp3store is soldd out of roadie.. havent checked ebay yet..

please advice..
thanks
tanmay

**2k1Toaster** · 04-19-2007, 11:05 AM

Good places to look for compnents are NewEgg.com and TigerDirect.com. Tiger likes mail in rebates which come out cheaper if you ever get it than NewEgg, but initially Newegg is usually cheaper.

And yes that "headphone" output is a 3.5" jack which just like you headphones carries 2 channels of sound. Basically 2 huge RCA wires packed into that little port. Cool huh?

So since most amps made for the car only accept RCA inputs rather than 3.5" "headphone" jacks, you need to get a conversion cable that takes that one jack with 2 channels each into 2 RCA connectors with 1 channel each. Ratshack has them for $4 now. Used to be closer to $2, but seems like everything in there is going up up up.

From this point, you now have 6 RCA's. 2 are the front's left/right, 2 are the rear left/right and the third set has the sub and center if you are going with a standard card. The center is not used, unless you have a 5ch amp for your speakers and a center speaker, which I have not seen.

**durwood** · 04-19-2007, 11:44 AM

The NX is out of production i believe since no one sells it anymore. You might get lucky and find it at stores liek office max or office depot or dig around online or ebay. Check compusa too, they are going out of business in some areas and you might be able to get a good deal on the roadie. If you need to understand how to connect it check the FAQ section. There is a guide on it if you have trouble understanding.

**tanners** · 04-19-2007, 11:56 AM

got a question...

how can you use the SPDIF from the sound cards..

tanmay

**2k1Toaster** · 04-19-2007, 12:05 PM

Originally Posted by tanners

got a question...

how can you use the SPDIF from the sound cards..

tanmay

Get an amp with optical in...

What else?

**hithere** · 04-19-2007, 03:25 PM

You can also use something like an Alpine H701 ($600) , which is a signal processor that gives you time alignment (great for creating imaging that makes two channels up in the dash sound like a concert hall and makes you forget about that "need" for rear deck speakers), has a great 30-band equalizer, another 4-band parametric eq, crossovers for each of your front tweets, front mids, rear channel speakers, and subs, and a controller that is small, fits in the front of your car somewhere, and possibly allows you to keep your factory head unit in place if you want to maintain the look of the car (you can run the head unit's output through a cheap line output converter and use it as an extra input for your amps). Using one of these, you could utilize optical output from your PC.

That, and trust me, you justify the cost of the processor by looking at the the money you would have spent on the rear two channels and the amp to power them. Whatever you decide on processing, start with a stereo front stage, worry about the rear channel later...or spend the money you'd have spent on a rear set of speakers on better fronts and possibly a pro-level soundcard that can do many of the things a processor can.

If you're looking into amps with optical input, I'd take a look at Zapco if you're in that price range (expensive, but niiiiiiice). There are also a number of less expensive audio processors that can take digital from a sound card and create crossover points, do time alignment, give you control up front from the dash, and output over RCA's for your amps. Look into older Alpines, Clarions, Pioneer, etc.

**john05srt4** · 04-19-2007, 04:01 PM

Well the 4 ch rockford amp has a pair of PASS_THRU RCa's so i have front and rear RCA's into the 4ch then pass thru to my sub amp one channel.

**tanners** · 04-20-2007, 07:36 AM

thanks for the response guys..
I like the alpine h701, hopefully in a couple of months i can save enuf to buy one..

thanks
tanmay

**tanners** · 04-20-2007, 07:49 AM

quickie... so if i have pxa h701 and decent sound card... and my carpc already has dvd drive.. only reason that i woud keep the HU wud be for radio..

and i can easily get some sort of radio adapter for carpc and my HU wud then be completely useless...
rite ?? if so i can just return it and invest that money for the pxa controller..

tanmay

**tanners** · 04-20-2007, 07:55 AM

Originally Posted by hithere

If you're looking into amps with optical input, I'd take a look at Zapco if you're in that price range (expensive, but niiiiiiice). There are also a number of less expensive audio processors that can take digital from a sound card and create crossover points, do time alignment, give you control up front from the dash, and output over RCA's for your amps. Look into older Alpines, Clarions, Pioneer, etc.

i already have the rockford 4 channel amp for speakers.. i still dont have the mono channel amp for sub.. so when i get that i will look for zapco amps..

thanks
tanmay