5.1 sound card sending center audio to sub.

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lightsout

[H]ard|Gawd
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Mar 15, 2014
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I have this old school sound blaster live external card. Was using it to get optical audio to my receiver. I ditched the receiver and bought a small desktop amp to run some bookshelves on a win 10 PC. But I would still like to use the sub. Its a powered sub from and old home theater in a box Onkyo setup.

On the sound card on the Center/Sub port I have a 3.5mm to dual female RCA jacks adapter. No matter which side of the adapter I plug the sub into I only get audio for the center speaker.

When I go into the speaker configuration for windows and test the center I get sound from the sub, when I test the sub I get nothing. Here is a pic of my sound card. It has a driver for win 10, doesn't have a lot of relevant options but at least it is supported. I tried setting the speakers to 2.0/2.1 in the sound card driver and that didn't do anything.

rear.jpg
 
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That should be your problem then.

Your black one is mono which means it takes ONE channel and splits it into two identical outputs, whereas the port on your card has two separate channels that you want to output into two separate RCAs. Your mono adapter can't carry both channels and output them separately so it just gets whichever one it contacts which happens to be the center channel.

Your other one is wrong also, it has three channels (four contacts). Though I'm a bit surprised as I would expect it to work, I'd just think that one of your two channels would be duplicated on two of the three outputs. Maybe not though. Maybe it just gets grounded or is shorted or something, I've never used a three channel one.

You want a stereo adapter, two channels = three contacts, like the second one I linked above. It could be you're also having another issue but without the correct adapter you can't really be sure.
 
This might explain a little. The sleeve is the ground and the other conductors are channels. With a TRRS you could have left and right and center, or left and right and mic, or left and right and video (I'm guessing the above guy is right and that's what yours is, for a camera), etc.

I think maybe your yellow three channel one, since it's not the right one, is connecting tip and ring and ring, and NOT connecting tip and ring and ground, so you're not getting a ground, so it isn't working. Or maybe the right way to say it is that it's connecting the ring and the sleeve to the ground so it's still not getting the proper ground.

Anyway, get a two channel one and it should work.

5369922_thumb.gif
 
You can test the stereo plug theory by slightly pulling the mono plug out of the port to make contact with the next ring pin to see if center starts getting sound.
 
Lizard Testes said:
This might explain a little. The sleeve is the ground and the other conductors are channels. With a TRRS you could have left and right and center, or left and right and mic, or left and right and video (I'm guessing the above guy is right and that's what yours is, for a camera), etc.

I think maybe your yellow three channel one, since it's not the right one, is connecting tip and ring and ring, and NOT connecting tip and ring and ground, so you're not getting a ground, so it isn't working. Or maybe the right way to say it is that it's connecting the ring and the sleeve to the ground so it's still not getting the proper ground.

Anyway, get a two channel one and it should work.

View attachment 143640
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Ok so I found this one in a box of junk. Strange.

I can get the sub to respond to the test in windows if I set it to 5.1, but as soon as I remove any speakers (center/rears) in the sound settings (because they don't exist in my setup) it no longer will make any noise. And there is no output from in with movies or music.

I am not sure what the deal is.

Sorry if I was not clear I am only using a 2.1 setup.

I just want the sub to work with some book shelves.
cable2.JPG


EDIT** I can get the sub working with Jriver messing with the DSP studio. Telling it to basically make it 2.1. But can't seem to get this working in windows.
 
Last edited:
lightsout said:
Ok so I found this one in a box of junk. Strange.

I can get the sub to respond to the test in windows if I set it to 5.1, but as soon as I remove any speakers (center/rears) in the sound settings (because they don't exist in my setup) it no longer will make any noise. And there is no output from in with movies or music.

I am not sure what the deal is.

Sorry if I was not clear I am only using a 2.1 setup.

I just want the sub to work with some book shelves.
View attachment 143648


EDIT** I can get the sub working with Jriver messing with the DSP studio. Telling it to basically make it 2.1. But can't seem to get this working in windows.
Click to expand...

This is also the wrong adapter. You can tell it's three channel because it has three plugs on one end, and four conductors on the other.

Get a two channel adapter.
 
Lizard Testes said:
This is also the wrong adapter. You can tell it's three channel because it has three plugs on one end, and four conductors on the other.

Get a two channel adapter.
Click to expand...
I see that, but its weird that it works for a minute and then doesn't. I got around it for now by using J river.
 
IMHO you should have never gotten rid of that receiver.... Optical cables are so much cleaner than whatever you have now... But; you should be able to get sound to the sub if you have more outputs on the speaker amp.
 
dotMPEG said:
IMHO you should have never gotten rid of that receiver.... Optical cables are so much cleaner than whatever you have now... But; you should be able to get sound to the sub if you have more outputs on the speaker amp.
Click to expand...
It really didn't add much at all. An RCA cable from my sound card. But got rid of a giant hot box on my desk.
 
Two thoughts here:

1) A typical 2.1 setup uses a stereo output. The cable typically feeds into the sub, where sub freq is split off and the speakers connect.

2) To get Windows to use the sub output, you will need to configure Windows to use the sub output. This will likely involve selecting 4.1 or 5.1 as the speaker configuration, even if you don't use rear speakers.


Also, in regards to the Center and Sub outputs, my Realtek (and I believe my Asus card as well) config has an option to swap the center and sub output. Which leads me to believe the center/sub audio swap issue is fairly common.
 
Krispy Kritter said:
Two thoughts here:

1) A typical 2.1 setup uses a stereo output. The cable typically feeds into the sub, where sub freq is split off and the speakers connect.

2) To get Windows to use the sub output, you will need to configure Windows to use the sub output. This will likely involve selecting 4.1 or 5.1 as the speaker configuration, even if you don't use rear speakers.


Also, in regards to the Center and Sub outputs, my Realtek (and I believe my Asus card as well) config has an option to swap the center and sub output. Which leads me to believe the center/sub audio swap issue is fairly common.
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Thanks for the info. The software for this sound card is pretty useless since it's so old. I think I got this card in 2007.
I went ahead and got a different amp that is 2.1 (SMSL A2) and will repurpose this one else where.
 
lightsout said:
Thanks for the info. The software for this sound card is pretty useless since it's so old. I think I got this card in 2007.
I went ahead and got a different amp that is 2.1 (SMSL A2) and will repurpose this one else where.
Click to expand...

Nice; thats a cool little amp though, honestly Im gonna have to look into that for myself.
Im currently using a vintage Pioneer amp that I got at goodwill for $13
 
dotMPEG said:
Nice; thats a cool little amp though, honestly Im gonna have to look into that for myself.
Im currently using a vintage Pioneer amp that I got at goodwill for $13
Click to expand...
It's actually great. So far it is working perfectly. I am not currently using the Sony Core's as they were too big at my desktop. I have some dayton audio speakers I got that were smaller. But this thing works well and doesn't even get warm to the touch.
 
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