[PLUG] Computer audio out to stereo <Sort of Solved>

Denis Heidtmann denish at dslnorthwest.net
Tue Jan 6 18:36:35 UTC 2009


John Jason Jordan wrote:
...
> However, there remains a volume problem. In order to keep the computer
> sound from breaking up I have to keep the computer volume control at
> about 50%. That is fine - the stereo speakers are efficient and the
> stereo amplifier has plenty of spare power - so it is not a problem to
> crank up the stereo to compensate. But if I decide to use the tuner or
> the CD player in the stereo it will blast me out of the house! I hadn't
> planned on this, but I guess I can just use the computer for everything.

I was having real trouble with this story, since my assumption has been that the 
output of your card was overdriving the input to your stereo, causing the 
distortion.  Now it appears that the distortion is WITHIN your sound card.

Since you are presently using the headphone output (or is it speaker output?), 
and you are driving a relatively high impedance load, the problem could be that 
the card output stage needs a lower impedance load.  One way to try this would 
be to use a set of earphones as the load at the same time you are connected to 
your stereo.  This requires some strange wiring connections, but might be possible.

I have two sets of earphones.  They have a DC resistance of 16 and 32 ohms.  So 
perhaps a dummy resistive load of something in this range would solve the 
problem.  The only difficulty would be arranging the connections--a trip to 
Radio Shack might be required to get the necessary hardware.

Can you post a link to the documents for your sound card?  How about a schematic 
of your stereo amplifier, esp. the input circuit?

-Denis



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