connecting powered sub directly to sound card

grafxalien · Nov 9, 2003, 12:24 AM

ok, right now i just have my stereo conencted to the rear outs on my sound card with the swap thing. I have my powered subwoofer conencted to my stereo. I was wondering if it would be possible to get another headphone to rca converter and just hook my powered sub up directly to the front output or something on my sound card. that way i can direct more bass to the sub and not as much to the normal speakers.

HunterZ · Nov 22, 2003, 01:49 PM

So you have a 2.1 setup (2 satellites and 1 subwoofer)? If you have a 5.1 card, then you can connect the sub to the center/sub output fi you know what you're doing, and then mess with the DSP settings for kX and you can get it to work fine. I did the same thing for a while, and now I'm using a similar setup for 4.1 speakers.

If you have a non-5.1 card (i.e. just front and rear outputs), you can probably still use the second output for the subwoofer because kX will let you route pretty much anything to any of the outputs.

The most important thing to know about tweaking the default kX DSP settings to use a directly-connected subwoofer is to open the Tweak menu for Surrounder and enable both "Use Subwoofer Output" and "Bass Redirection".

mattcro · Dec 23, 2003, 02:37 PM

I use a stereo hifi amp plus speakers connected to rear out (swapped to front), and a separate powered sub connected to the sub/center out via a normal stereo 3.5mm jack. The sub connects to the sleeve (ground) and ring (sub signal) of the jack. Do not connect to the tip (that's for the center channel). In the kX surrounder panel, set the speaker mode to 2.1, check "redirect bass" and "use subwoofer". Play with the crossover freqency till it sound about right, somewhere around 80-120Hz depending on the speakers. This works fine for me, the only drawback being that you have to either use only the kX mixer level control (output volume), or adjust both the sub level and stereo amp level simultaneously... I'm working on building a 2.1 (might get round to 5.1 one day, don't do much surround on the PC tho, just music) dedicated amplifier to suit my setup, then only one hardware vol control will be used.

Matt.

Nov 9, 2003, 12:24 AM	#1
grafxalien DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Oct 2003 Posts: 2 Rep Power: 0	connecting powered sub directly to sound card ok, right now i just have my stereo conencted to the rear outs on my sound card with the swap thing. I have my powered subwoofer conencted to my stereo. I was wondering if it would be possible to get another headphone to rca converter and just hook my powered sub up directly to the front output or something on my sound card. that way i can direct more bass to the sub and not as much to the normal speakers.

Nov 22, 2003, 01:49 PM	#2
HunterZ DriverHeaven Addict Join Date: May 2003 Location: Seattle, USA Posts: 257 Rep Power: 0	So you have a 2.1 setup (2 satellites and 1 subwoofer)? If you have a 5.1 card, then you can connect the sub to the center/sub output fi you know what you're doing, and then mess with the DSP settings for kX and you can get it to work fine. I did the same thing for a while, and now I'm using a similar setup for 4.1 speakers. If you have a non-5.1 card (i.e. just front and rear outputs), you can probably still use the second output for the subwoofer because kX will let you route pretty much anything to any of the outputs. The most important thing to know about tweaking the default kX DSP settings to use a directly-connected subwoofer is to open the Tweak menu for Surrounder and enable both "Use Subwoofer Output" and "Bass Redirection". __________________ Athlon XP 3200+, Gigabyte GA7N-400Pro2 Rev 2.0 (nVidia nForce2 chipset), 1 GB DDR400 (CAS 2.0, dual-channel), ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB AGP 8x, WinXP Pro SP2, DX9.0c., Logitech Z-5500 5.1 speakers

Dec 23, 2003, 02:37 PM	#3
mattcro DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: May 2003 Location: Scotland Posts: 29 Rep Power: 0	I use a stereo hifi amp plus speakers connected to rear out (swapped to front), and a separate powered sub connected to the sub/center out via a normal stereo 3.5mm jack. The sub connects to the sleeve (ground) and ring (sub signal) of the jack. Do not connect to the tip (that's for the center channel). In the kX surrounder panel, set the speaker mode to 2.1, check "redirect bass" and "use subwoofer". Play with the crossover freqency till it sound about right, somewhere around 80-120Hz depending on the speakers. This works fine for me, the only drawback being that you have to either use only the kX mixer level control (output volume), or adjust both the sub level and stereo amp level simultaneously... I'm working on building a 2.1 (might get round to 5.1 one day, don't do much surround on the PC tho, just music) dedicated amplifier to suit my setup, then only one hardware vol control will be used. Matt.