How do I hook up 7 speakers to my computer without using an expensive 7.1 receiver.?

Question

I was wondering if there was a way to hook up 7 speakers and a subwoofer without a receiver. Is there a way to do it with just a PC speaker setup and only 3 jacks.

Answer 1

Yes there is but you have to use POWERED speakers. The 1/8" jacks on your computer may or may not be 5.1 sound. Most likely you need a separate audio card to support 7.1 audio.

The jacks on your computer are line level outputs (or inputs) and don't have enough power to drive a speaker. There are computer speakers with built in amplifiers that can take these line level signals and make them audible.

You need to double check your computer and see if it even has the proper outputs for 5.1 or 7.1 audio. 5.1 audio is transmitted by 3 output jacks (left and right main, left and right surround, and center/sub-woofer  jacks.) 7.1 audio is also transmitted over 3 jacks but two of the jacks are 3 way rather than 2 way jacks. There will also be at least 2 input jacks for line in and mic in.

If your computer only has 3 audio jacks it can only do stereo sound and is not 5.1 or 7.1 compatible. 5.1 or 7.1 systems will have at least 5 jacks.

For any computer sound your outputs must be run either to powered speakers or to a receiver.

Most sub-woofers are self powered and have a built in amplifier.

Answer 2

You can't drive loudspeakers directly from a PC.  You need an amplifer.

Since the output from the PC is just stereo, there is no point in trying to use all those 'speakers anyway.  If you do, you will end up with unequal power distibution between them and it will be impossible to achieve a decent stereo image.  

Just use the two best 'speakers and settle for that.

Answer 3

you cannot.

your sound card has three jacks; aux/line in; mic in; speaker out.

speaker out is low wattage, about 100milliwatts (0.100Watts), so you need an amp after that to get the gain required. The output is stereo, that is, it is Right + Left. this is two channel audio.

You cannot make two channel audio into 7 channel audio without some electronic magic in the middle... you need to fake it! even still it will not be true surround sound.

Surround sound is encoded on the media, the encoding is fed to a SS receiver where it is decoded, and each channel is processed by a separate amplifier.