Speakers - slightly off topic

[Joel Jaeggli]

On Tue, 7 Jun 2005, Will Yardley wrote:

> On Mon, Jun 06, 2005 at 11:31:46PM -0400, Neal Rhodes wrote:
>
>> Now, you could have 4 sets of powered speakers plus the CD player.
>> Or you could find something to mix the 3 outputs together and run
>> it to a single set of speakers. Or even use the AUX input on the CD
>> player.
>
> A small pro audio mixer[1] would do it, but if you don't mind
> matching the levels of the various devices (and if you don't mind
> the occasional "shock" when you forget to do this), and don't need
> to listen to more than one device at once, you could use a passive
> switching box (Radio Shack probably still sells one[2]) that takes
> in 3-4 sets of RCA ins and lets you switch between them to a single
> output. Making such a box isn't difficult either (a multi-position
> rotary switch would probably be your best bet in that case).

With cheapo pc speakers with a tiny little amp there isn't much likelyhood
that you'll blow the drivers, but with a decent sized amp or larger self 
powered monitors it's probably not worth the risk.

> You could use Y adapters, but this would not be the preferred solution -
> it would probably result in degraded signal quality and problems
> matching levels.
>
> You could also do some daisy-chaining (i.e., plug the laptop into the
> line in of the desktop, use your music player software to play music
> directly off the mp3 player if possible, etc.) and try to play
> everything out of your desktop (using the builtin mixer software to
> adjust the relative levels).
>
> [1] http://www.bswusa.com/proditem.asp?item=UB802
>    http://www.bswusa.com/proditem.asp?item=POWERMIXIII
>    http://www.bswusa.com/proditem.asp?item=BLEND6
> etc.
>
> [2] http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&product%5Fid=15-1983
>
> w
>
>

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Joel Jaeggli  	       Unix Consulting 	       joelja at darkwing.uoregon.edu
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