Thread: 5.1 output, 4.2 speakers...?

what you need to do is for the 5+6 channel your amp should allow you to Bridge. Comping from your sound card you need a 3.5 to 2 rca stereo connector, from that find the sub channel, now you need a single rca to 2 rca mono plug.

This will get the results your looking for. If you would of asked sooner I would of had the Radio Shack part numbers you were looking for, however threw them away. Now a company called sonicwave makes some nice cables that I am getting to replace the radio shack stuff.

I'm having the same problem, except I have the 3.5 to stereo rca's. I found which is the sub line and which is the center line, the problem is, my sub channel isnt outputting anything. Thus I'm stuck with the bass from the center channel (not much)

-w

Waltwalt, what you need to put on your Male Rca plug is a female RCA to dual Male RCA mono. Radio shack should have this. I know they have the 3.5 to stero, than the male rca to 2 female rca mono. This is what I used for my solution, until my high quality cables come in.
Hope this helps you out.

Originally Posted by waltwalt

I'm having the same problem, except I have the 3.5 to stereo rca's. I found which is the sub line and which is the center line, the problem is, my sub channel isnt outputting anything. Thus I'm stuck with the bass from the center channel (not much)

-w

Alot of soundcards allow you to swap center and subwoofer output. I can do this with my onboard sound (iBase MB870 motherboard). Go into the settings for your card and see if this is available.

I've got a set of the 3.5mm to stereo RCA's, one line clearly has the sub and one line clearly has the center channel. I don't want too many connections in there if possible.

I will look around for the settings to swap my center and subs, but I don't think there is one. I have the external 24-bit live soundblaster, I didn't install creative mediasource which seems to have disabled a lot of options. I'll check it over at lunch and let you guys know.

-w

PS. thanks for the replies

I checked it out, there is no option anywhere to switch the channels. Strange thing I noted though, when you run through the creative speaker setup, it plays the "front left" "front center" "front right" "rear right" "rear left" etc. shows the little soundwaves comming out of the speaker on screen, but doesnt do anything on the sub channel, no pictures no sound. But when I goto the noise check, it plays noise across all the speakers and then the sub, and I hear the noise from the sub.

So why doesn't anything else use the sub channel?

-w

WOAH.. why do you want to split your subwoofer sound? Thats a mono channel. Subs are recorded as mono, and will always sound better as a matched mono pair, than splitting them into l/r sub channels. You would only split sub-bass if you had distinct subs up front, and that would be running from the front channels. Leave it alone, leave it mono. And your amp should work fine having sub be a mono input. if not, then yeah, you'll have to split the sub channel only, and use it on both sides. Just leave the center disconnected.