Thread: Audio Wiring question....

Originally Posted by Confused

If you are not going to be using a centre speaker, then it shouldn't matter at all if it's not plugged in. It will just pump the signal down to the end of the wire regardless of whether it's plugged in or not

I am thinking of splitting up my sound output from my Epia to have surround, will be better once I have a DVD drive in the dash


Garry

Garry,
The center speaker is wired in the car (all oem wiring), but if i do not plug in the center soeaker from the 51 surround my M9000 puts out then the audio coming in will be substantially lacking, won't it? Its been my experience that 5.1 puts out most of its sound through that center speaker and i am concerned i will not have enough juice running to the amp and the speakers will sound weak.

So the question is, how do i wire the center in with the RF, LF, RR, or LR? Bose produces it by bridging the 2 front speakers, but if i split the center channel and wire each pos into the front speakers (center pos becomes 2 center pos, each pos wired in the pos for RF and LF), then i lose stereo sound, right? That is, RF and LF + would be touching, through the center spkr wiring.

what do you think?

Shamir

Originally Posted by MikeH

Shamir,

Sounds like your Bose amp is a 4 channel amp, not 5 channel. If you are going to drive your center (5th) channel AS A SEPERATE SURROUND CHANNEL, you'll need a seperate amp channel to do it, just like you are doing with your amp/sub. However, if all you want to do is "simulate" a center channel (ie, not deliver what is actually recorded in the center channel on your source DVD), you COULD implement some sort of bridge. I would be surprised if there are not some of these products in the auto-audio aftermarket. Again, bridging LR & RF will NOT give you TRUE 5.1 surround.

You are correct. You don't want to connect your LF & RF wires together, for several reasons, the least of which is losing stereo seperation. It could blow you amp!

That being said.....do you really NEED 5.1? What will be your Dolby/DTS source (DVD,XMR)? You are correct, most of the vocals in DVD's come from the front channel, but I would bet most of what you will be listening to is MP3 music, which is NOT 5.1 surround. I believe the EPIA can give your some sort of DSP simulated surround, which would sound OK without a seperate center channel.

I would also encourage you to look into how the EPIA handles NON-5.1 surround sound (ie standard stereo MP3s) when the speakers are connected as you intend (5.1). You may be juggling the mixer controls each time you switch audio sources from MP3 to DVD....not a big deal, but not real desirable either.

My bose amp is interesting - it takes in 4 channels, but puts out 6, so i guess it is a 4 channel amp, with high pass and low pass filters for center/sub.

I would be fine settling for non 5.1 sound, except i want a seperate line for my sub, and consequently non-fader controls. That is, i want to be able to set the soundstage and tweak the bass inside the car while simultaneously turning the subwoofer down because sometimes it is overpowering. i have a little 1/2 DIN EQ that takes stereo in and puts out RF, RR, LF, LR and Sub-out, but i dont have alot of room and i was hoping to use the onboard 6Ch. This would save me a lot of wiring and would allow me to control fading and sub controls without having to reach over to the glovebox, which is where the external EQ would have to be mounted.

I do not rally care about non-5.1 surround because i mostly do not watch DVDs, i mostly watch divxs. Thus i am usually listening to stereo. i was planning on switching the wiring so the left side of the output becomes the rear and the right side of the output becomes the fronts, that way i can use winamps "balance" feature to fade front and back. I have an external bass boost knob that can be remote wired to my cadence amp, and i was going to use that for sub-control.

What do you think?

Originally Posted by Jackso

Back to your center channel issue, I'm not sure about the 9000 but the 10000 has the option to mix channels automatically. So you could mix the center channel to the fronts. The center audio would then come out of both the FL and FR, your hearing would then perceive the sound to be coming from the center even though it's not. (this is how "matrixed" 6.1 surrond works to create the center rear without an acutal speaker)

Okay, so i looked under my audio setup in XP and there is no option to check a box called "Smart5.1 Surround", so i'm thinking that while my mobo is supposed to be able to put out 6 channel surround.....it can't.

*sighs* im resigned to just using stereo sound out to a passive EQ and letting that split up my channels.

unless anyone has any other ideas....

Originally Posted by MikeH

You may want to try downloading the latest audio/sound drivers from the EPIA support site.

Good call...i'll try that!


Happy new years everyone.

Originally Posted by MikeH

You may want to try downloading the latest audio/sound drivers from the EPIA support site.

Tried that...no dice. I think i am just going to use the passive EQ, which is not so bad. I have one question about the wiring on it though:
t has a wire for + (12v), then a wire for - (GND), then a wire for "Source GND". What is that? where do i ground it?


Thanks for the advice.