cpu to great sounding system

jettamasta · 09-11-2003, 07:38 PM

i want to hook my computer up to my car sound system. i will have 2 separates for the front, some 6"'s for the back and 2 subs. pluss 3 amps to drive it all, 1 for uper range, one for mid, and one for low. how can i hook this up to my computer so i would get the same quality sound as if i hade a high quality head unit running it.

albysure · 09-11-2003, 07:59 PM

just install the computer as if it were a head unit. in my system i'm using a surround processor as my master volume control.

tejesh83 · 09-11-2003, 08:07 PM

High quality RCA to mini 1/8" cables should do the trick. I chose monster. Warning, the connector may not fit on your sound card.

Pick a nice soundcard to get better performance.
M-Audio Revolution 7.1 or Audigy II look good.

Or, you could pick a professional/home theatre sound card with RCA outs instead. Not sure how these sound.

Audigy II works great for me. I use only 2 amps atm. 1 for the infinity components up front and alpine type r's in the rear. Another 5-700W RMS amp for the 12" sub (used to be a pair, but I wanted to reclaim some trunk space).

Audigy II has some descent dsp features, including sound stage and basic parmetric eq including bass boost. I did find one weak point. The sub out on the audigy II is a little low. It takes alot of gain on the amp and parametric correction. I've also tried a Y-split on the front channel. It restores the boom, but you lose the built in crossover function of the sound card. I'm undecided as to which is better atm.

Not sure if this is a problem on the M-Audio Revolution. I may pick one up this weekend to give it a try.

PhlyingMonkey · 09-11-2003, 10:40 PM

I orginally had the same problem in my car as well. Ended up using RCA Splitter plugs, typical stereo mini-jack to rca's going to a set of splitters plugged into the front amp. Then from the splitter going to a 10inch Kenwood sub at the back.

I really reccomend using line out on a sound card. If you drive an amplified signal into line in on an amp you can put quite a lot of stress on them and damage components.

(The joys of having a certificate in sound engineering)

wi77iam · 09-12-2003, 12:13 PM

Hey Phlying,
I though the opposite - that the line out from the card was not high enough voltage for input to the amp. My plan was to output from the card to a equalizer/preamp and then to the amp. This would also provide me master volume control.

PhlyingMonkey · 09-13-2003, 07:16 PM

You could do it that way but you may find you'll get issues with things like component stress, heat, noise hiss and/or minor distortion. Plug a set of headphones into line level output and then into the speaker output. You'll noticed the line level is barely audible, that's the signal that amps are designed for and it's a standard signal strength between audio devices.

stkdidy ntshidy · 09-14-2003, 03:59 AM

comp--->hu aux in--->to speakers
l
\/
screen

in my soon-to-be case its...

comp--->hu aux in--->pxa h700 5.1 brain--->amps/speakers
l l
\/ \/
screen line driver--->center channel amp--->2 center speakers

or i guess you could run it from the comp sound card to the amps directly if you only played audio if and only if its on the comp

stkdidy ntshidy · 09-14-2003, 04:01 AM

ignore that second schematic...apparently this forum morphs a bunch of spaces into a solid line of text, and therefore its all off