Computer speakers / Home Stereo

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AricJonHo

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Apr 16, 2004
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I'm sure this is not a new idea, but I wasn't able to find anything online. Pretty much, I like my computer speakers, always have. I own a set of cambridge sound works, 500 somethin watts, 5.1 surround sound. Obviously, 5 speakers, good sub. Anyhow, typically, I play dvd's off of my computer, and output the video with s-video to a tv in my house. Works great. The sound comes off of my computer, and the tv's located nearby, so just need to reposition a couple speakers, and I get great sound(I'm in love with THX logos).

So, my sound card, well, it's onboard on my a7n8x nforce2 mobo, so it's nvidia soundstorm, which i'm pretty sure supports dolby digital encoding. Does this means that it can take audio data, and split it into the appropriate channels? I mean, i can hear that it's doing that, but i wasnt sure if the audio data was already written in that sort of 5.1 format, or if it was the encoder parsing it out, I guess I'm not totally clear how it works, can someone explain?

I use 3 jacks for my speakers on my computer, pretty standard, the green main line, one for rear speakers, and one for center/sub.

If i wanted to watch TV on my computer(I don't have a tvtuner card yet, but i plan on purchasing one), how does the audio work with these cards? Will they be able to transmit the proper information so i can watch tv-programs that have 5.1 proplerly?

Also, another situation. Currently, my speakers are hooked directly up to my TV in the living room. I have the 3 1/8" cords going into something that makes it 1 1'8", and then a 1/8" into two RCA. Then the two rca plug into the according audio output on my TV. So, when i'm watching tv or playing a game, i know it's not dolby digital 5.1 or anything, but the sound is coming from all the speakers, what's going on? Is it pretty much stereo sound, made surround?

And if i wanted dolby digital, I am assuming I would need to purchase a receiver, then hook the speakers up to the receiver. Where does the audio input come from on the receiver though, is it from the TV, or just from the cable connection? And in what manner would be best for me to hook my speakers up to the receiver? If I remember correctly, a dolby digital 5.1 receiver has a lot of jacks, but I'm not sure what kinds.

My speakers all connect to my subwoofer, as in most cases, and then my subwoofer has several inputs, which i usually connect the 3 cables to my computer.

http://www.3dsoundsurge.com/reviews/MegaWorks510D/images/image5.html
There's a picture on the middle of that page that shows the inputs on my subwoofer. Typically, how would I hook them to a receiver? What cables would I need, etcetera.

Would it be easier to just run everything through my computer, ie use tv tuner, then output video to a tv with svideo, and then just use computer speakers?

Lastly, if you've read this far, thank you, i appreciate it, but why are home stereo speakers so much more expensive than computer speakers. Is the quality that different? It seems to me that the frequency ranges of my computer speakers tends to be larger than most home stereo speakers, and as far as audio manipulation, i have plug ins on my computer I can use to enhance the sound(I use DFX, if anyone is familiar with that, and if this sucks, lemme know).

Anyhow, thanks again!

Aric
 
well the soundstorm will only work with digital out. i haven't tried it with the coaxial line, but it does work with the optical line. through this line u well get a stream of audio data that is encoded in dobly digital. then you need to decode the signal either through a receiver or decoder box. as for tv tuner card and audio issues, i think you should post this in the home theater pc section
 
1) DD Encoding means it can take 5.1 separate channels and turn them into a DD data stream. This can then be passed through your soundstorms digtial out to a reciever which will then turn it back into separate channels and send the sound to the speakers. Its just another way of moving the sound about, what you hear from that would be pretty much the same as if you'd just put the sound out to the speakers with your 3 analogue conections.

2) If the card supports 5.1, thats what it'll pass to the soundcard. I didn't know tv shows came in 5.1 yet :/

3) Slightly confusing to read that, but I think you mean you've just got the stereo output plugged into your speakers. The speakers will then copy the front right to back right and same for the left. The centre will be a mix of right and left.

4) Does your tv support DD? If not, you're not going to get it.

5) Yes it would be easier just to go through the computer.

6) They sound better.
 
Aric,

Home theater speakers are just better built. Other than a couple sets of speakers [like Swans] you can't get hardwood enclosures or quality veneers in a PC setup. As Osiris mentioned, the quality difference is also staggering. I just auditioned a home theater setup consisting of speakers from here:

http://www.av123.com/products_category_brand.php?section=speakers&brand=3

This was consisting of RS750's for mains, RS200 center channel, and RSS300 surrounds. The quality was far and away superior to anything you'll get in one box, but for ~2300$ it better be =]

The only thing that guy lacked was a decent sub, but I've got that covered already =]

http://www.svsubwoofers.com/subs_pb2_plus.htm

That's the biggest point that I notice with computer speaker setups: boomy, ugly bass. I had a set of Klipsch promedia V2 400's [the very first PC speakers Klipsch made] but I got sick of them after a while, the bass was so muddy and indistinct. Hell, I could disconnect the sattelites and STILL recognize the song, as the sub was crossed over way too high. Now, one 140lb sub later, all those problems are gone =]
 
I am curious about the SPDIF connection on my sub. It's an RCA, non optical spdif connection, will connecting this to the receiver work? Somehow I feel like one RCA connection cannot support that much data. Obviously the optical connection is better, but my speakers dont have a connection for that.

As far as home stereo speakers being higher quality, I pretty much figured that. But according to the specs, they don't seem to be that much better? The frequency ranges are typically similar, the sheer amount of power is pretty close as well.

I know there is a lot of love/hate opinions about bose home theatre, but as far as the technology in the speakers, pretty much any audio effect plug in on a computer could do the same thing.

Then there's the whole pricing, I dropped maybe 250 bucks on my speakers 2 years ago, they retailed around 400 I believe. They were pretty much klipsch 5.1's only competition, and my speakers had slightly more solid reviews. If i spend 400 dollars on a home stereo system, would the quality still be better? Or does that major quality difference only arise when I get into the higher budget systems, like ascend acoustics or onix?
 
AricJonHo said:
I am curious about the SPDIF connection on my sub. It's an RCA, non optical spdif connection, will connecting this to the receiver work? Somehow I feel like one RCA connection cannot support that much data. Obviously the optical connection is better, but my speakers dont have a connection for that.

As far as home stereo speakers being higher quality, I pretty much figured that. But according to the specs, they don't seem to be that much better? The frequency ranges are typically similar, the sheer amount of power is pretty close as well.

I know there is a lot of love/hate opinions about bose home theatre, but as far as the technology in the speakers, pretty much any audio effect plug in on a computer could do the same thing.

Then there's the whole pricing, I dropped maybe 250 bucks on my speakers 2 years ago, they retailed around 400 I believe. They were pretty much klipsch 5.1's only competition, and my speakers had slightly more solid reviews. If i spend 400 dollars on a home stereo system, would the quality still be better? Or does that major quality difference only arise when I get into the higher budget systems, like ascend acoustics or onix?
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First a freq. range of 20-20k is easy to acheive, now doing it with a flat response curve for that entire range is completely different. Plus many computer speakers and cheaper speakers have vey poorly built cabinets and you can hear the effects of the cabinets in the sound (not good). That will not show up clearly in any spec sheet. As for power ratings you really can not compare them and really should just be ignored in all aspects. There are so many was to measure power ratings that comparing two figures is just about pointless.
Other specs you do not mention is speaker effiecieny(sp?) which is a very important figure, it lets you know how easily or hard it will take an amp to drive a speaker (that is the simple explanation).

I do not understand how you relate Bose to audio effect plugin? Both destroy music but do not see how they relate other than that. ;)

$400 for 5 speakers and a sub, and a reciever is not much, and the klipsch 5.1's probably would be just about as good.

There are 2 types of SPDIF connections, Optical and Coax. Coax looks like an RCA cable (it is) and is common on many recievers. They both send the same data and the same amount. They are pretty much equal for quality, some people actually say Coax is slightly better because it is generally does not get affected by jitter as much. But most will conclude that you can not tell a difference between the two. Techincally optical would have less issue with noise, but since both are digital noise generally is not much of a problem.
 
I've also just remembered that my mobo has an rca spdif connection, and i'm kind of assuming that it can work as an output or an input, based on software specifications. This means, I could just use my computer again as the hookup. Couldn't I connect my receivers spdif output into my computer, treating it as some sort of "line in"? Or, would connecting the spdif on my subwoofer directly to the receiver, bypassing my computer, and still encoded in DD, since the receiver supports it, be a better idea? Can speakers be hooked up to 2 different audio input sources? In this case, the 3 analogs for my computer, then the spdif for my home theatre?

Also, as for as the coax spdif being better, just did some research, and evidently it's less susceptible to interference, and can travel a longer distance, eg. 50 feet as opposed to opticals 20 feet.
 
AricJonHo said:
Also, as for as the coax spdif being better, just did some research, and evidently it's less susceptible to interference, and can travel a longer distance, eg. 50 feet as opposed to opticals 20 feet.
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COAX is NOT less susceptible to electrical interference, it is less susceptible to jitter though.
 
Connections to subwoofers are analog anyhow. The jacks look the same as a digital coax, but it's not. Low frequency sounds are non-directional, so the subwoofer channel carries the low frequency components of the sound from all other channels. Don't sweat the difference between coax and optical. I choose coax because I can make my own cables out of RG-6 coax for cheap.
 
GodsMadClown said:
Connections to subwoofers are analog anyhow. The jacks look the same as a digital coax, but it's not. Low frequency sounds are non-directional, so the subwoofer channel carries the low frequency components of the sound from all other channels. Don't sweat the difference between coax and optical. I choose coax because I can make my own cables out of RG-6 coax for cheap.
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I think he is referring to the subwoofer of his computer speakers, which can have a SPDIF connection since many computer speakers put all the decoder and amplifier for ALL speakers in the sub case.

Could be wrong though
 
m1abram said:
I think he is referring to the subwoofer of his computer speakers, which can have a SPDIF connection since many computer speakers put all the decoder and amplifier for ALL speakers in the sub case.

Could be wrong though
Click to expand...

You're right.
 
Optical can run A LOT longer than 20 feet(that's one of optical's advantages over the electrical connection) and it is much less succeptible to interference than electrical. AFAIK, the coax connector on the a7n8x deluxe cannot function as an input. The a7n8x deluxe can encode dolby digital on the fly, but you are not going to magically get 5.1 sound out of a stereo source. If you mix all your channels down to two channels by using splitters and combiners then it sounds like your center channel will get either the left or right channel and then your subwoofer will get the other channel. Not exactly ideal. As far as hooking these speakers to a receiver, it's not going to happen. At least not correctly. The speakers have a built in amplifier, so you wouldn't want to hook it up to the amplified speaker outputs of a receiver. Receivers typically do not have an s/pdif output, so that is probably not an option for hooking up the speakers. I don't understand why you would have an entire reciever just to send digital out to amplified speakers. Get some real speakers and you WILL notice the difference. Fuck specifications. I can go to kmart and get some $10 multimedia speakers that will probably have comparable specifications to your speakers.
 
jpmkm said:
Optical can run A LOT longer than 20 feet(that's one of optical's advantages over the electrical connection) and it is much less succeptible to interference than electrical.
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Actually that is not completely true that optical can run farther than 20 feet. The stuff used for AV gear is low power and using plastic. The signal can only travel a short distance in this config without a repeater. Optical has other limits for cable bends too that Coax does not.

I am not sure of the exact distance for the optical used in AV, but it would not surprise me if it was no more than 20 feet without repeaters.

edit:
Found some more info on TOSlink, granted this is a newsgroup discussion but tends to follow other data I have read.
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=t...ff&[email protected]&rnum=2
 
jpmkm said:
I don't understand why you would have an entire reciever just to send digital out to amplified speakers. Get some real speakers and you WILL notice the difference. Fuck specifications. I can go to kmart and get some $10 multimedia speakers that will probably have comparable specifications to your speakers.
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Not that I WANT to hook it up to a receiver for digital out, but it's the only source of it I could think of. What else would I hook it up to, my tv audio out? Then I KNOW i'm not getting anything but stereo. Basically, I'd like to be able to have DD without having to purchase another set of speakers for my HT system. I suppose an option would be to plug my speakers into the receiver, without the sub, then just buy a sub. Then it'll be pretty easy, since speaker wire connections seem prety standard on most amp/receivers.

I also noticed that I was wrong about the digital connection on my sub, it's a 1/8" jack, wtf is that? I'm assuming you would need to use it in combination with some of the other jacks or something, anyone know what's up with that?

As far as getting "real speakers", i'm not quite in the budget to spend over 500 bucks.
 
AricJonHo said:
I also noticed that I was wrong about the digital connection on my sub, it's a 1/8" jack, wtf is that? I'm assuming you would need to use it in combination with some of the other jacks or something, anyone know what's up with that?
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If the 1/8" jack is clearly labeled as being spdif and probably colored orange then you would need a 1/8"->RCA adapter plug. Creative Labs uses the same connector for their spdif coax.

For trying to do a HT with $500 bucks is pretty hard. Not even sure what to recommend to you. $1000 is easier, but $500 is just a little bit too low.

HTIB is about your only option, or just use some really nice computer speakers.
 
Nothing is going to magically make stereo sound anything more than stereo. Few receivers have digital outputs, and few have dolby digital encoders. You can get a standalone dolby digital decoder that will take in a DD signal and output line level signals, which would be suitable to input to your speakers(via 6 channel analog). It won't make a bit of difference, though, if you aren't using a dolby digital encoded source.
 
AricJonHo said:
Basically, I'd like to be able to have DD without having to purchase another set of speakers for my HT system.
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From what you said earlier, you already have surround sound on your PC (for games/DVD). Do you want surround for tv as well? If so, you'd need a tv that could pick up DD signal. Can your tv do that?
 
Osiris said:
From what you said earlier, you already have surround sound on your PC (for games/DVD). Do you want surround for tv as well? If so, you'd need a tv that could pick up DD signal. Can your tv do that?
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I'm thinking no. But in a typical setup, isn't the tv signal sent to the receiver, then output to the tv for video? And then all the audio is handled via the receiver, so the audio information never even touches the TV? Regardless, according to jpmkm's post, that wouldnt help anyway. Sounds like i would need to buy a DD encoder. Somehow I thought most receivers were also encoders, but I guess i was pretty mistaken.

Dolby Pro Logic, isn't this when a type of program that takes 2 channel stereo sound, and splits it appropriately into 6 channels? But somehow I feel this is just splitting the information, and is not true 5.1 sound.

So in most HT cases, what do people use? I guess some dvd players have DD encoding, and they just use that? Aren't most HD programs in 5.1 sound?
 
Nope, the signal will go straight to your tv (or cable/sky) box. A reviever can only act as a switch with video sources, so it cant decode the signal from your cable company.

What do you want to encode into DD, and why..?

Yup, Prologic takes a stereo signal and turns it into 5.1. Its actually pretty good at this as it puts the speech in the centre channel and leaves the effects/soundtrack in the surrounds. Prologic 2 is especially good at this.

No DVD player would have a DD encoder, it would be completly pointless as DVD are already encoded in DD. They will however, all have DD decoders.

I don't know much about HDTV, as its not about in the Uk yet, but if you have the means of recieving HD broadcasts, surely that would have some sort of output for the surround sound...
 
Dobly digital isn't some magical format that will give you 5.1 no matter what you put into it. It is simply an encoding scheme to put 5.1 audio channels in one data stream. Typically, people don't have dolby digital encoders in a home theater setup. It just adds extra layers. If you have 5.1 channel sound that you would put through a dolby digital encoder, then you could just pipe that 5.1 channel sound directly into the reciever and avoid that encoding process altogether. Most 5.1 stuff is going to already be encoded in dolby digital or dts or something already. Dolby digital output on a reciever would be pretty pointless because what would it go to? Another receiver?

I have heard of some tv programs having dolby digital sound(yippie we can hear the super bowl announcer in amazing 5.1 channel sound). For this I believe you would need a cable box or satellite box with a digital audio out. If the stream is encoded with dolby digital then you just hook that up to your receiver and the receiver will decode that and send it out to your speakers. No need to encode anything. If something isn't already in dolby digital then you won't gain anything by encoding it. Most dvds already have a dolby digital encoded audio stream on the disc, so there is no DD encoder necessary in the player. The dvd player will either just spit out straight dolby digital or it will have a built in DD decoder and spit out discrete six channel analog sound.
 
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