Splitting Your PC Sound

[Chip Fossa]

Is there any real benefit to "Ying" your PC audio speakers/sub-woofers?

For a while, now, I've been running my PC soundcard thru Creative GigaWorks T-20 combo all-in-one speakers/bass woofer. A very nice sound for the compactness of the units. No sub-woofer. Just two tallish a-i-o speakers.
But I have an RCA stand alone sub-woofer that I got from Radio Shack, maybe 5-7 years ago. Still works well, and sounds OK.

So I have it 'Yed' in with the T-20's.

But I couldn't pass up an Amazon deal
to buy a Logitech Z2300 speaker/woofer combo for $83 (retail at $150). The woofer weighs in at almost 20lbs. $101.00 total, to ship.

So my question is: Does splitting up the Creative/RCA setup with the new Logitech setup, maybe not make that much of a sound difference, but eases the overall strain on the entire audio system? ie. sharing the audio load?

It seems, so far as I can tell, after only a few hours of messing around with this, that the 2 systems together sound more rounded, but lack punch that either one or the other has by itself.

Thanks all.

Chipper

[John Cipriano]

Chip, does your sound card have a separate headphone out? If it does, I'd use that if you want to have both sets of speakers. Or the headphone output of one of the sets.

If you want to test what splitting is doing to the card, keep one side of the splitter free with your original speakers turned up, and the new ones off but turned down. Then add the new ones and see what happens...the volume might drop, or the sound might distort, or both.

Maybe someone will be able to fill in a little more since I really don't know the whole story. I know that sound cards put out a line-level signal, which is high-impedance/low-current, which matches up with the powered speakers you have. But by plugging both in I think you might be halving the load, which on a traditional amp is like "asking" for more current. On a sound card it might not matter. My guess is the signal will just get cut in two.

If you don't hear it distorting it's probably fine. Still, you should get better sound out of a single set of speakers, both from the fact that each set has a different frequency response profile, and that your sound card will be seeing a different load than it was designed for. Not that it will cause any damage, but it probably won't sound as good.

[Jack Stoner]

First you need "powered" speakers (ones that have a built power amplifier) for the PC. Thus the RCA subwoofer, unless it has a built in power amplifier will not work or work correctly.

But, if you want two sets of speakers connected to the PC at the same time you an "Y" the Speaker output from the PC or if you have a "line out" you can connect one set to the Speaker and another set to the Line out.

You can't use the front Headphone jack and the rear speaker jack at the same time on most systems since plugging into the front headphone jack will mute the rear speaker output.

[Chip Fossa]

Thanks John and Jack,

Yeah, the Creative and Logitech systems are both "powered" as well as the RCA subwoofer.

I'll take your tips and mess around with them.

Right now, as I mentioned, it sounds pretty well with little or no distortion (when cranked).