Shoutbox

I bought a phone cable today, so I can hook up my hi-fi speakers to my PC, instead of using my crappy standard PC speakers, but i've run into 2 problems.

1. When i plug the phone cable (2 parts) into the back of the hi-fi system, there is wayyyy to much bass, even turning it down from the hi-fi and PC made hardly any difference. I realised, by putting the phone cable into the Playback slot, above the phono slots, the sound was fine. Why does that happen?

2. After putting the cables into the Playback slots, I though all was well, but I was mistaken. When playing CS: Source just now, i noticed that sounds coming out the right speaker was just pure treble, with very little bass. How can I sort it out?

I have changed settings on both my PC and the hi-fi system, but no difference

Most PC's have multiple sound output sockets.

In normal standard PC's you plug your headphone in the same socket as you would plug in active* speakers since the output signal is not amplified.

With some soundcard outputs there is a difference between the sockets for the line-out and the headphone socket. The socket of the line-out is already amplified whereas the socket for the headphones is not.

When you plug in active speakers into an already amplified socket outlet you'll get distorted sound (and in the worst case scenario you can blow up your speakers).

*"Active" speakers are speakers which have their own amplify system; you need to plug them into a power outlet also (most PC speakers). "Passive" speakers do not have an internal amplify system, they need to be hooked up to an amplifier (eg: most speakers on a HiFi system).

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This said, you didn't provided enough information though.

When you speak of your "hi-fi speakers", do you plug them directly to your soundcard on the PC? Or do you plug your hifi system (aka amplifier) to the soundcard (and thus the hifi speakers are connected to the amplifier, not to the soundcard).

What is the "playback slot"? What is the proper indication (name or pictogram) printed above that socket?

And by "phone cable" I assume you mean "audio cable", as a phone cable is cable you use to plug your telephone into the phone wall socket of your home

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1) Set your sound configuration for your PC to normal (do not adjust anything like bass, treble, etc... set everything to normal/default). Don't forget to check your specific sound driver settings (Windows' own configuration panel is useually not the only control panel for the sound!!!)

2) Do the same for your HiFi system. Set all the bass, treble, midtone, etc at the normal level (useually indicated by "0dB"). This could also mean turning off the "Bass Reflex", "Bass Boost", or whatever other special FX options you might have on the HiFi system.

3) Connect the "Line Input" or "Aux In" from your HiFi system to the "Line Output" or "Aux Out" (not headphone socket if you have a seperate socket for that!!)

4) Connect your speakers to the HiFi system's speaker output. Do not connect them to "Line Out" or whatever. Use the proper special connectors.


The above points are partially guesswork as you didn't provided enough and detailed information on what cable you have, what the exact plugs on that cable are, what exact input sockets and what type of the sockets you have on your HiFi system, what exact output sockets and what type of the sockets you have on your soundcard, etc...

quote:

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
When you speak of your "hi-fi speakers", do you plug them directly to your soundcard on the PC? Or do you plug your hifi system (aka amplifier) to the soundcard (and thus the hifi speakers are connected to the amplifier, not to the soundcard).

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I mean, the speakers themselves are connected to the hi-fi system. Then I use a phono (typo in my first post) cable to connect it to my sound. The phono cable is in the headphone jack on my sound card (green port)

quote:

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
What is the "playback slot"? What is the proper indication (name or pictogram) printed above that socket?

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It says, "Playback" on the left hand side and on the right hand site it says "DAT"

Here is a picture of the cable:

The red and white connectors are put in the hi-fi and the black connector into the sound card.

quote:

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
1) Set your sound configuration for your PC to normal (do not adjust anything like bass, treble, etc... set everything to normal/default). Don't forget to check your specific sound driver settings (Windows' own configuration panel is useually not the only control panel for the sound!!!)

2) Do the same for your HiFi system. Set all the bass, treble, midtone, etc at the normal level (useually indicated by "0dB"). This could also mean turning off the "Bass Reflex", "Bass Boost", or whatever other special FX options you might have on the HiFi system.

3) Connect the "Line Input" or "Aux In" from your HiFi system to the "Line Output" or "Aux Out" (not headphone socket if you have a seperate socket for that!!)

4) Connect your speakers to the HiFi system's speaker output. Do not connect them to "Line Out" or whatever. Use the proper special connectors.

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OK, im not sure where to put the cables, as nowhere does it mention on either the sound card or the hi-fi about Line Input/Output or Aux In/Out.
the ports I have at the back of the hi-fi are:
REC OUT

Playback     DAT

Phono

One the sound card, there are 5 ports
A black one
A green one (where it is plugged in at the moment)
A pink one (which I know is for a microphone)
A blue one
A yellow one.

green one is "front" or "headphones" or "line-out"

pink is "microphone"

blue one is "line in" (for when you want to connect your HiFi to the soundcard and want to record something from your HiFi on your PC for example)

Yellow and black one can be anything, refer to the manual for that (only green, ping, blue are defined fixed colors. Colors of other sockets like "rear", "sub", etc are not fixed and everybody uses his own colorscheme for them)

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You indeed need to plug in the small stereo jack of the audio cable in the soundcard on the lime green socket.

The other ends (the RCA's plugs) should go to either "PlayBack" (whatever that is, never seen it being used before) or "DAT".

It should work normally then, if not then there is something wrong with your software settings of you sound card (driver config, sound config, effect config, ...)

If normal Windows sounds are ok, but game sounds are way off, check your sound setting in the game (eg: it might be that you've selected 5.1 surround sound in the game, but that you actually don't have it, etc...)




PS: to check if your HiFi is setup correctly you could connect an (portable) CD player, MP3 player, or whatever to it (to the same sockets you would otherwise connect the soundcard with), though prefereabily a standalone CD player or a Cassette Player, and check how the sound "sounds"... Configure your HiFi so it sounds properly (and don't use self-recorded (MP3) CD's when doing this as they are more than often badly equalized already!!!)

When you then connect the soundcard with it and play a normal musicfile on your PC it should sound roughly the same (in context of Bass, Treble, etc). If it doesn't sound roughly the same then your software/drivers configurations on the PC are messed up.

I checked my game sounds, as I deduced that it is the problem although I can't really notice it when listening to music or any other sounds. I had my speaker set to "2 Speakers" in the game. I tried the other options, those being Headphones, 5.1 Speakers and 7.1 Speakers, but they made no difference. There arn't any other audio settings apart from volume and sound quality.

[Edit] Just found out what the yellow and black ports are. The black one i a Rear Out Jack and the yellow is Digital Out Jack.
After a extremely vigourous test, the problem speaker is low on bass, on and off game. So when playing music, extremely little bass is heard

[Edit 2] I remembered that I have on-board sound aswell. So, I tested out the speakers, and the speaker stays the same. Its now either a problem with the speaker itself, or the way its supposed to be (i.e. one speaker with lots of bass and the other with lots of treble to balance it)

how about you give me the name model of you Hi-Fi ?

Generally for stuff like that to work best theres usually 2 ports on the Hi-Fi its self matching your colour.

there would be setting on your hi-fi called AUX (or close to it)

So you would have

CD,Tape,Radio,AUX. I use to have my PC connected up to speakers on TV and the speakers on Hi-Fi lol

Very strange configuration but was funny because it like played in a row E.G during a game.

PC's Speakers - gun shot bang .
then the rest like followed in order bang bang bang bang bang etc.

was funny.

you have the PC side set correctly just a matter of finding the correct spot on hi-fi.

if both speakers aren't the same it means you don't have the right connections.

Red and white connector, like Left and Right speaker sort of.

so if you switch those round does the one speaker still sound the same? if it does theres a problem with were you pluging the other piece of the cable.

example of ports your need on back of you Hi-Fi

Should be colour coded