Hooking my Stereo Receiver to my Computer?

[Jungmamr]

Hell all,

Alot of intelligent people on here, so I figured I came to the right place to get my question answered. Anyways, I'll give a list of my hardware information first; I am just trying to hook my stereo receiver (with all of it's speakers) into my computer (using it's speakers too). I want to be able to play mp3s and whatnot through my stereo and computer speakers at the same time. Here is the hardware:

Stereo- Panasonic SC-HT75 DVD home theater sound system. There is an aux input in the back (RCA) adapter, and I have tried using that already but nothing so far.

Computer- I am guessing all the information need for this is just the sound card; it's a Creative Soundblaster Live! platinum...? I think. I am not sure exactly; it has the Live! drive in the front with the midi inputs and SPDIF IN and OUT inputs.

I just need to know if it is possible to hook these two up and if so, what I need to do exactly.

Thanks!

Matt

[daveleau]

You can get a cable at Radioshack that does from a digital plug (plugs into speaker port of all sound cards) to 2 RCA jacks. This will allow you to play your system through your stereo speakers, provided you have RCA hookups on the back of your stereo.

As for using both computer speakers and the above setup, you can get "Y" adapters to hook up 2 sets of speakers. With this, not all sound cards like this and I would suggest keeping the packaging for the wires for returns if it does not work. I have had one system that this worked on and one system that it did not work on. I could never figure out why it did not work on the second system.

Welcome to TechIMO.

[Jungmamr]

Thanks alot! That helped alot! But I am confused as to which RCA plugins to plugin to? The AUX ones?

[daveleau]

It doesn't matter really. I hooked mine up to 'VCR1' on my stereo. I tried Phono first, but it sounded really really bad. I don't know if there is something special there for phono or if it was just coincidence. I tried mine in TAPE 1 and TAPE 2 and VCR 1 and all sounded great. Mine didn't have an AUX, but it can't hurt anything to start there.

When you try this for the first time, set the volume of the sound card in the OS to about 50% and turn the stereo all the way down to avoid blowing anything. Just a precaution.

[Jungmamr]

Thanks again! I got all the stuff and it works great!

[Redwolf]

Yeah, don't hook it to phono. The phono stage uses an extra amp because phono sound is actually very quiet. Anything else should work fine tho (I use 'Video').