Home Theatre Speakers into PC?

[Zmanno999]

So I've got some tower speakers laying around from my home theatre, anyway I can hook them up to my desktop without a receiver?

[mo' power]

None that I'm aware of. You'll need some type of receiver/amp to power the speakers. Entry level receivers can be had for under $250 these days if you shop around. I picked up a pioneer vsx-520k for $280 taxes in this year. There are cheaper models available.

[biff]

Check out the used market. Lots of people are unloading their otherwise good receivers for HDMI capable ones these days. Some good deals to be had.

[Pax]

Check out local pawn shops too. I picked up an old citizen receiver for 25$ from Cash Converters to power a set of speakers from my computer.

[blaze_125]

Originally Posted by Zmanno999

So I've got some tower speakers laying around from my home theatre, anyway I can hook them up to my desktop without a receiver?

This was my gettho setup back in the days.
Took some headphones, and cut the wire to keep a good wire length and the 3.5mm jack
Connected the jack wires to my speaker wires
Connected the jack right into my computer.
So I basically had "huge headphones"(2 speaker box, with 1 woofer + 2 midrange + 1 tweeter in each box)
It worked great!

[Jackquelegs]

Originally Posted by blaze_125

This was my gettho setup back in the days.
Took some headphones, and cut the wire to keep a good wire length and the 3.5mm jack
Connected the jack wires to my speaker wires
Connected the jack right into my computer.
So I basically had "huge headphones"(2 speaker box, with 1 woofer + 2 midrange + 1 tweeter in each box)
It worked great!

Good luck driving those..

[biff]

You were fortunate enough that your speakers had a high enough impedance that it didn't smoke your sound card. And you'd only get a couple watts at best. I have no doubt it at least worked by I do question just how well. A couple of watts will take you farther than most might realize but I'd bet that your soundcard was struggling to do that and I have to wonder just how much distortion there was.

[JD]

Originally Posted by biff

You were fortunate enough that your speakers had a high enough impedance that it didn't smoke your sound card. And you'd only get a couple watts at best. I have no doubt it at least worked by I do question just how well. A couple of watts will take you farther than most might realize but I'd bet that your soundcard was struggling to do that and I have to wonder just how much distortion there was.

Just out of curiosity, what about a soundcard with a built-in headphone amp? Probably still not really enough power, but should be a bit better/safer than using a non-amplified 3.5mm jack?

[Jackquelegs]

Wouldn't make much of a difference at that scale. It still would be smoked if something goes wrong.

3.5mm jack is never supposed to be deliver that kind of power

[b1lk1]

Headphone amps usually use some crazy high ohm value too making them rather unlikely to drive speakers with any decent sound.