Home Office/Theater Assistance

[THerman]

I need a little help and I hope someone here can assist me. I am having a home office built. I am a computer guy and know very little about the audio side of things. I have an ok set of spearkers (6.1) that connect to my sound card on my computer.

What I want to do is have speaker wire run in my office so I can hang all my speakers (minus the sub) from the wall, and see no wires. I have seen stores that sell the wall covers that I could attach the wire too. That part doesn't seem to bad. However, the connections on the wall covers, that I have seen, all have a different connection then my speakers have. I have a Creative Labs Audigy sound card and the the speakers have the appropriate connection for that. All the home theater wall outlets I see have a different connector.

Any advice?

 

[jaxvon]

What kind of speakers do you plan on using in this setup (ie what brand/particular systerm)?

 

[BMXTRIX]

I'm definitely confused by what you are asking...

'wall covers'? I have never heard of those. Most stores sell in-wall speakers or wall mounting brackets for existing speakers. If you see something that looks like a speaker grill just sticking out of a wall, then there is a full-fledged speaker behind it.

Now, the speakers you have are PC speakers. They have built in amplification, so you need to plug them into the wall directly. In wall speakers are fed speaker level audio that runs back to an amplifier, then to the source material (your PC). So, it would go PC->amplifier->speakers. Most people when doing this go out of the sound card to a surround receiver, then to speakers.

Not really sure how you would do it using your existing speaker setup honestly.

 

[THerman]

I currently have a set of Creative Labs Inspire (6.1). I may change those at some point but it will always be a set of computer speakers.

I'm sorry if my question was confusing. I'm not sure what the terminology is. You know when you plug your computer network cable into the wall jack and work? I want an audio wall jack so I can plug my speaker into it. The wall jack will be wire to another wall jack near my computer where a cable will go from it to my sound card, thus completing the circuit.

I hope that makes more sense.

 

[HowY]

Are U with me Dr. Wu?

The wall plates likely have binding posts (preferred) or spring terminals

The issue is this is a pc speaker setup usually centrally amplified. (in sub?)

As to the wiring from a patch plate (box cover or decora) to the speaker
drops it's a good clean idea.... a Cat5 connector is not a good solution
really (tho many here seem to run audio over it)

But the real advice you you should be getting is the wiring idea is gold
the speaker system is for e-bay....

Really need to patch the sound card into an amp then to the speakers.

FWIW
_________________________________________
Or just the shadow of the man I once knew?

Ok so I'm a SD / Becker-Fagan fan....

.... Still I remain tied to the mast could it be...?

 

[Randos]

From my experiences with computer audio you either connect your speakers directly to the sound card or, more likely than not, to a breakout box. Most PC speaker connections that I have seen are in the form of 1/4" plugs. If this is the case, I'm not sure if they make wallplates for such connections, though the good folks here would know better than me.

 

[Beegowl]

"The wall jack will be wire to another wall jack near my computer where a cable will go from it to my sound card, thus completing the circuit."

The circuit won't be complete without an amplification source, which is the role your subwoofer plays now. You can run wire from the wall jack to another wall jack near your computer, but from there you must run the speaker wire to the amplification source and from there to the computer sound card. You'll need jacks that have 1/4 inch on one end and 1/2 inch on the other to plug into the wall jacks at the speaker end, and probably at the amplifier side, too. I'm not sure of the connections between the amplifier and the speakers in your Creative Lab setup. It's a matter of finding the right size jacks and connecting them properly. But...you'll always have 6 watts of power driving the speaker in this setup. Unless your home office room is the size of the typical work cubicle in an office, you won't have enough power to really fill the room with the sound you probably want, you'll risk damaging your speakers trying to get more sound from them by increasing the volume. And, that's a whole different issue.

 

[THerman]

Ok. That's starting to make more sense now. Yeah, I was skipping a step when I said the circuit was complete. That's just as far as I need it. I know i'm talking about RCA connectors because that is what is on the back of my sub, which then connectes to my soundcard. I guess, from what i'm hearing, these are 1/4" RCA jacks but typicall stereo or wall plate RCA jacks are 1/2". Is this a correct assumption? I also assume there is a cable I can get to go from 1/2" to 1/4" so I can make the connect from the speakers to the wall plate and from the wall plate to the woofer?

In regards to the sound.. the office is not very big and I have used them in a similar setup before, but they were just lying on the floor.

Thanks

 

[jaxvon]

Wow, now I'm even more confused. Maybe some pictures or something?

 

[THerman]

I'm not trying to cause mass confusion. It's actually very simple and that might be the problem. Plus I don't know the terminology enough to make sense.

Ok.. lets try again. I have a set of 6.1 speakers that are connected to my computer. all the speakers plug into the woofer and the woofer plugs into my sound card. The plugs appear to be your typically RCA style jack. They look different then what is on the back of my stereo system that my TV is connected to. I guess they are a different size. Just look at any computer speaker and that's the connection i'm talking about.

Now. The goal is to have the same setup but spread the speakers across my office in appropriate locations. I could do this with the wires stretching across the room, because they are long enough. The setup on my computer would be no different.

However, I don't want wires everywhere. I want speaker wire to be run through the wall to the correct locations. This is where my questions come in. I don't want the wire just sticking out of the wall on both ends. Plus, I wouldn't know how to hook them to my speaker or the sub anyway. This is where the wall palte comes in. I figured the speaker wire would connect to an RCA connector in a wall plate then the speaker could connect to it. On the end by my computer would be a larger wall palte where all the speaker wires would gather and be hooked to there respective RCA jacks. Then a cable (?) would need to go from the wall plate, the one by my computer, to the sub.

Ok.. Does that make it anymore clear. I have looked at the wall plates they have at lows and while the connector looks similar to what my speakres should plug into, it doesn't fit. I guess this is the 1/4" and 1/2" issue that someone else mentioned. I suppose there is some soft of adapter I could use to solve this problem.

 

[MDS]

Most computer speakers and sound cards use 1/8" stereo mini plugs, which look just like the 1/4" connector on headphones albeit smaller. Some higher end cards use normal 'cinch' connectors which is just another name for the regular RCA jacks your stereo uses for analog connections.

Which type do you have? I suspect 1/8" mini as that is the most common and from what you have described the connections from the sub to the sound card and from the sub to each speaker all use the same type of cables with 1/8" mini plugs one each end.

I think you can achieve what you want but it will be alot of work:

The only issue you will have is that it is very difficult to find very long runs of cable with a 1/8" mini plug on both ends. Radio Shack does sell ~12 foot cables with mini plugs on both ends. You can get barrel connectors (female on both ends) to connect multiple cables together to make a longer run. So build up the run length you need for each connection by connecting multiple cables with the barrel connectors. You would need one additional barrel connector on each end to mount into the wall plate so that the wall plate is a female end (the mini plugs are obviously male.)

Subwoofer to sound card
Plug the mini plug into the wall plate and run the cable from the wall plate thru the walls to another wall plate near the computer. Plug another cable from that wall plate into the sound card.

Speakers to subwoofer
Same deal as subwoofer to sound card except that you need separate wall plates for each speaker. For 5 speakers, that would mean 10 wall plates. You need 5 wall plates near the sub to go from the wall to the sub and 5 wall plates for the speakers (one for each speaker).

Instead of building up the long cable length you need by using multiple cables connected with barrel connectors, you may be able to just use coax cable (RG6) of the appropriate length. You would have to terminate the cable with a 1/8" mini plug which would require soldering unless you can find an adapter to go from the F connector on the cable to a 1/8" mini plug. I know you can buy F to RCA adapters, but not sure if they make F to 1/4" or F to 1/8". You would still also have to add the female barrel connector at the end of that for the wall plate so the male mini plug can plug directly into it, but at least you would have one single cable for each run rather than a long mess connected with barrel connectors.

 

[Beegowl]

Hey, Anon, great analysis.

 

[THerman]

Thanks for all the information. That does help. I will probably do a test this weekend. My actual plan is to not use a pre-fab RCA cable but to build one using speaker wire. That way I don't have to worry about length.