Ghetto rigging surround?

Fryguy · n00b Joined: 25 Apr 2003 Posts: 32

I've got my front 2 speakers hooked up right now (to a home theater receiver so I can use some decent bookshelves, but that's besides the point). Can I just plug in some random speakers to the rear output and have 4 channel surround sound? Or does everything need to be kitted?

metalac · Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2003 7:01 am Post subject:

from what I know you should have everything go into one box and then have the speakers hooked to that box, be it a reciever of some sort or a subwoofer with a builtin reciever or something. It's needed so that appropriate sounds could be routed to the appropriate speakers.
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theJPster · Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2003 1:55 pm Post subject: 4-channel soundcard?

If you have a four-channel sound card you just need to plug in another pair of stereo speakers to the rear-outputs. You might need to swap around left/right leads (if you can) to get the sound where it should be (because the speakers are now behind you, not infront of you). Maybe my speakers were just made wrong or something...

If your speakers have +/- leads on them, check that they are the right way around. If you have one speaker on +/- and the other on -/+ they'll effectively cancel each other out leaving it all sounding quite empty. Again, depending on the way your speakers were made (mine were made by a small blindfolded monkey, I'm sure) you might have to wire it up in reverse to match your front speakers.

If you only have a stereo sound card you'll need a new one

. If you transfer your sound digitally to the receiver (mmmmm, yummy) you'll have to plug the speakers into the receiver and then that's a whole new kettle of fish. You'll need to find speakers appropriate for your receiver's amp.

Technically I suppose you should find speakers that match in timbre and tone or something. But as you said, this is ghetto surround

As for finding drivers that support all four channels ... that's another matter entirely! Some swear by ALSA, some swear at ALSA.
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Fryguy · n00b Joined: 25 Apr 2003 Posts: 32

Well it's an SBLive, so I think that I can just plug new speakers in. At least until I decide to spend some money and get some nice 5.1 speakers instead of using these random bookshelves plugged into a receiver now.