Need help with my audio setup for my computer

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ImPrettyIrish

ImPrettyIrish

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Hello,
I recently purchased a 12 inch subwoofer from monoprice, replacing my 3 inch sub from walmart. I hooked everything up the same, and if you need pictures, I can take those too, nevertheless, barely any sound comes out of my speakers. Is there anything I need to purchase?
To describe how I have it set up is, I have 2 3.5mm jacks coming out the back of my pc that get joined to one 3.5mm cord that plugs into a volume wheel. A cord comes out of the volume wheel that connects a red and white RCA cable to the subwoofer. I then have two RCA cables going out of the subwoofer into my two speakers. One for left, another for right.
I don't know what's going on so any help is appreciated.
Thanks
 
Solution
dudio
The problem is, I think, that with the old 2.1 speaker system the amplifier for all 3 speakers was in the subwoofer, and that is now gone.
I'm not sure why you have coupled together two 3.5 mm connections from your PC, but we can get to that. In any case, the outputs from your PC are called "Line Outs" in that they are unamplified, and low level. Connecting that to the new sub's "Line In" should work fine, but the problem is the sub isn't really meant to power/amplify other speakers, and certainly not via the "Line Outs" because as we know now, that is low level/unamplified.
You can try connecting the 2 satellite speakers to the "Hi Level Out" speaker connections and see if they work that way. To be honest, I've never tried that, and...
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ImPrettyIrish

ImPrettyIrish

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It is a powered subwoofer, so what should I be doing differently?
 
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dudio

dudio

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The problem is, I think, that with the old 2.1 speaker system the amplifier for all 3 speakers was in the subwoofer, and that is now gone.
I'm not sure why you have coupled together two 3.5 mm connections from your PC, but we can get to that. In any case, the outputs from your PC are called "Line Outs" in that they are unamplified, and low level. Connecting that to the new sub's "Line In" should work fine, but the problem is the sub isn't really meant to power/amplify other speakers, and certainly not via the "Line Outs" because as we know now, that is low level/unamplified.
You can try connecting the 2 satellite speakers to the "Hi Level Out" speaker connections and see if they work that way. To be honest, I've never tried that, and it's possible the sub has to have Hi Level Inputs connected (which you can't do) in order to pass Hi Level sound on the outputs. You can try, but alternatively you need a Surround Receiver/Home stereo system that supports powering two speakers and has a line out for the sub. You could easily get a used AV Receiver locally for cheap.
 
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Solution
dudio

dudio

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Apr 26, 2015
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You can get small amplifiers that don't take up much space around the computer, but I think a home surround receiver is better. You can go with 10 year old technology that supports Dolby Pro Logic, and has surround effects as well, and would give you flexibility to add surround and/or a center speaker in the future if you wanted. Sony is fine, Yamaha is very good for the price, and Onkyo or Denon would be a bonus.
 
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ImPrettyIrish

ImPrettyIrish

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Thanks so much for your help
 
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