Sound card to speakers without HU or Amp.

spoonraker · 10-13-2006, 08:30 PM

I know there is an FAQ about something very similar to this, so don't flame me for asking this if it's been answered.

I'm currently running my 6 speakers off of my headunit (no amp) and using a 2-channel amp to power my subwoofer (via amp preouts on the HU). How would I wire my soundcard to power everything without using a headunit? Would I have to buy a low power 4-channel amp, and run one of the channels to my big *** 2-channel amp for my subwoofer and then use the method in the FAQ to wire the amp to the soundcard?

pepsibobby · 10-13-2006, 08:32 PM

get a 6.1 output card and its easy from there.

spoonraker · 10-13-2006, 08:34 PM

6.1? Didn't know they had that, I have a 5.1 if that's what you mean, but probably not, I'll go look into it.

spoonraker · 10-13-2006, 08:36 PM

I took a quick look at newegg and the only catagories they had were 5.1 and 7.1

AcuraTLFan · 10-13-2006, 09:28 PM

You can buy a 4 channel amp, that will give you 4 independent channels, surround sound. Or you can just by a 2 channel amp...but that would just give you stereo sound, left and right. You have to get a 3.5 mini plug to RCA...the ones you see that connect an IPOD to a stereo system.

pepsibobby · 10-14-2006, 12:38 AM

well you have 7 speakers so you could do the 7.0 system.
6.0 speakers. and then 1.0 for the sub. youd have a good system with that.

spoonraker · 10-14-2006, 12:45 PM

I'm still kind of confused on this...

Let me run down this again. I have a Monoblock amp which hooks to my subwoofer and nothing else. I have 6 other speakers in the car which just run through my harness into the CD player, no amp.

Can I somehow cut off my harness and attach a 1/8'' audio jack onto each of the speaker leads then plug each one into the appropriate spot on the sound card. Then convert the bass channel on the sound card to RCA, plug that into my monoblock amp, and power my woofer normally?

Or do I have to buy an amp? I'm assuming I'de use a 4-channel amp, tweeters, door speakers, rear deck, and sub. Is that four channels? Or is left and right it's own channel, meaning a 7 channel amp?

dan__wright · 10-14-2006, 01:03 PM

im guessing your 6 speakers are left rear, right rear and then two front left & two front right? guessing they are components so they are run together so you need a four channel amp for them and then run your subs off the existing amp. (4.1 - for the people who were blatently guessing, before the dot is the channels that run high / mids and after is the subs.)

spoonraker · 10-14-2006, 01:16 PM

So my door speakers and tweeters are wired together?

That actually makes sense now that I think about it, I remember when I installed a new head unit I saw FR, FL, RR, and RL, I didn't notice any middle. I'll take a second look at my wiring harness and scratch my head a bit more

Without taking a look at anything, and just assuming what you say is true, I think this is the best plan : Buy a low powered 4 channel amp and run the 6 speakers off of it, then just use my current monoblock amp on my sub. That brings me to my next question. What soundcard would I need? A 4.1 card?

spoonraker · 10-15-2006, 05:47 AM

dan__wright · 10-15-2006, 05:49 AM

depends how you want to do it, could use a streio card to all for channels on the amp and the monoblock or you could get a 5.1 and set it up as 4.1

spoonraker · 10-15-2006, 06:50 AM

Basically my question is do I have to buy a soundcard that perfectly matches the number of channels or can I configure a 5.1 to really be a 4.1? I'm going to guess yes, it only makes sense for it to be backwards compatible.

Ok so I think I finally have it. I'm going to get a good 5.1 card (simply because there is a better selection of quality 5.1 cards then 4.1 cards) and have it run as a 4.1. I am going to cut off my wiring harness for my head unit, and wire my speaker leads into a 4-channel amp. Then I will connect the four channels from the sound card into the corresponding RCA inputs on the amp using splitters and such. Then I will have a separately wired monoblock amp for my sub that is wired the same way, only using the bass channel from the sound card.

Does that sound good? I'm really sorry it took that long for it to all come together in my head lol, I really don't know why I was making it so difficult.

dan__wright · 10-15-2006, 07:00 AM