Best way to hook up speakers to sound card?

May 19, 2015 9:54 AM

I have these speakers: link. I have a pc monitor with 2 hdmi and one vga. My ps4/xbox one are connected to the hdmi ports and my pc is vga. The speakers are hooked up directly to the monitor so that sound works for everything. I bought a xonar dg for the sole purpose of getting rid of the hiss from the onboard crap in the pc I have. I was wondering what the best way to hook up the speakers are? The speakers themselves have a headphone output so I just plug my headphones into them rather than on a case by case basis of whatever console I'm using. I just don't want to ruin my headphones in the process. 99% of the time I'm just watching youtube or listening to a podcast while playing a game of fifa so i don't feel like upgrading speakers right now. Headphones are hd 558 if that helps at all. Should i just hook up unused sony studio monitors to the back of pc and call it a day?
posted by mamamia88 to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

Erm, why not plug the soundcard into the line in (that music note) on the speakers, so that they're directly connected to the speakers?

I also question why there's hiss with the onboard... it's likely somewhere else in the chain, as you'll probably soon realize.

Either way, plugging a headphone aux cable from the front channel output on the sound card into the line in input on the front of the speakers should allow you to bypass your onboard audio... but if you're already using onboard audio, you'll just switch from that to the soundcard, and turn off the onboard device either through Windows or in BIOS.

I might be confused by what you're asking...
posted by disillusioned at 10:22 AM on May 19, 2015

Response by poster: Well the soundcard specs say it has line in for center right and left but i only have a single 3.5mm for 2 left and right. Just confused into what i'm asking myself to be honest.
posted by mamamia88 at 10:39 AM on May 19, 2015

Response by poster: Oh and the hiss doesn't exist on other components but does on my pc so i narrowed it down to the pc
posted by mamamia88 at 10:40 AM on May 19, 2015

http://www.asus.com/uk/Sound_Cards_and_DigitaltoAnalog_Converters/Xonar_DG/specifications/
The four 3.5mm jacks on your soundcard are: Front out (L/R), Rear out (L/R), Centre/Sub out and a line/mic input. Each jack can output two independent signals. They aren't two sets of mono left/right jacks.

You want to plug a 3.5mm to 3.5mm cable from the green socket on the soundcard to the music note on the speaker. This will play the sound from the PC to the speaker, when you remove this cable from the note you'll get the sound from the consoles via the monitor as you do now.
posted by chrispy108 at 11:52 AM on May 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: What's the benefit of connecting the sound card to the music note on the speakers compared to say connecting the speaker cable directly to the sound card? The vga cable I use on my pc also has a parallel audio cable that connects directly to the monitor.
posted by mamamia88 at 12:13 PM on May 19, 2015

The benefit would be you could listen to the PC whilst watching one of the consoles.

You could connect the soundcard to the monitor and do the sound via the monitor, but I thought you wanted to listen to the PC whilst watching one of the consoles, and the monitor I have switches audio when it switches the picture.
posted by chrispy108 at 1:05 PM on May 19, 2015

Response by poster: Nah I just want to be able to do one at a time without swapping out cables constantly. So it would be ok to just have the cable from the monitor into the green port on the sound card? And does a sound card automatically override the front panel headphone jack? Or does it require some kinda cable?
posted by mamamia88 at 1:36 PM on May 19, 2015