Sharing 5.1 speaker system between 2 computers

[Other-Yoda]

I have Logitech X-540 Speakers (5.1) and I was running them on my desktop for several years.
I built another PC that I want to use for gaming only. While I have G430 headphones for it, I would like to have an option to switch my speaker system between these 2 PCs. I researched many KMV switches and none of them would work. I assume that there is a 2:1 switch needed that supports 3 mini-jack
cables that run from the audio cards but I am having a terrible time finding something that will work.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance for any leads.

O-Y

 

[Brian_B]

It's called a Mixer.

I won't claim to promote the following, just showing you an example:

https://www.amazon.com/JUST-MIXER-A...al-instruments&ie=UTF8&qid=1504985140&sr=1-17

*edit* re-read your post - this would allow 2+ sources to play through a set of speakers at the same time, and adjust the volume of each independantly at the mixing point.

If your looking for KVM style either/or selection, something like this might work:
https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=8231

That is designed to take one input and output it between one of two devices. You could probably run it the other way, since it's just a passive switch (one output, put your inputs on the A/B). Again, not promoting this particular product (you'd need some adapters, it's meant for straight wire/pin input), just showing an example.

If it were me, I'd just get the mixer, and you can use the volume adjust to mute a source you don't want to hear - effectively using it like a KVM switch.

 

[Other-Yoda]

Well, I may not have been totally clear...
Logitech X-540 has 3 cables (with mini-jack on the end of each cable) running from audio output of the computer to back of the sub-woofer that does all channel-separation and amplification. What I am hoping to do is to have output from each computer going to some kind of switch that can let me choose which computer feeds the sound to the speaker system. I do not need to mix, I want the system to play sounds from one computer at the time. So, 2 inputs (3 cables from each source) to one output. Easily doable if switching to the speakers directly, but the fact that all amplification is done inside sub-woofer, makes things complicated. Below is wiring diagram, I want to have cable #4 being fed from 2 sources thru a switch.

Thanks for your interest.

 

[Brian_B]

You'd need a mixer for each of your 3 channels then (front/rear/LFE).

Might be cheaper to either get a full receiver...

 

[HammerSandwich]

Easily doable if switching to the speakers directly, but the fact that all amplification is done inside sub-woofer, makes things complicated.

Any box that can switch speaker-level connections will work at line level, too. But I'm not aware of a packaged source selector that handles 6+ channels, so you'll probably need to hack connectors yourself. I think you could use a few 1/8" stereo cables plus an A/B box for DB9 or VGA signals. Using Monoprice or similar would make this a $25 project.

 

[illram]

You can either get a receiver, or get some sort of external cheap sound card that has front/rear/sub out and USB-in, such as this https://www.amazon.com/dp/B013256ODG/ref=psdc_3015427011_t2_B01M7QQQC7

and then buy a USB switch to switch between your two PCs.