From: Blunderov (squooker@mweb.co.za)
Date: Thu Mar 18 2004 - 11:04:12 MST
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-virus@lucifer.com [mailto:owner-virus@lucifer.com] On Behalf
Of Walter Watts
Sent: 18 March 2004 12:14 AM
Are there any electronics experts around here. I need to know if
connecting the sound cards from 2 different PCs through a Y-cord into 1
sound system (external amp, sub, etc.) will cause any crosstalk or
impedance problems. I thought about using a switch, but I would rather
not.
BTW, I'm not sure what crosstalk or impedance really mean, but I know
enough to suspect they MIGHT be relevant.
Thanks in advance for any advice,
Walter
[Blunderov] First a caveat: I am not an electronics expert. But since
nobody else has replied I'll venture my thoughts.
I don't think there would be a problem doing this assuming that the
external amp has an input for a digital signal. (Alternatively, the
sound cards would need to be able to produce an analogue signal. In this
case it's possible that you would need to put a pre-amp into the circuit
to produce sufficient signal for the amp to work with.)
If the signal you are working with is digital, as it very likely is,
then I don't believe impedance will be a problem. This is a rating of
the resistance that an analogue circuit offers to the signal being sent
along it (I believe).
Neither do I believe that crosstalk would be a problem, I believe that
this is an induction phenomenon and would only relate to analogue
systems.
It would probably be helpful if the sound cards were the same make.
There is hideous plethora of methods of encoding and decoding video and
audio signals and having fewer variables in the system is probably a
good idea. That said, you are probably in no real danger here, assuming
that the amp has a digital input option: it will either recognize the
signal or it won't.
If you are working only with digital it is very unlikely that you will
harm anything in any of the systems, so if it was me, I would go ahead
and give it a try.
If you are sending a digital signal into an analogue input, you will
need a device that converts that signal to an analogue signal first.
These devices are commonly available but, as usual, the more you spend
the better the quality. In theory anyway. Here it would be
very prudent to get some well informed advice as to what sort of output
levels would be suitable for the input of the amplifier.
I think Bill Roh knows far more about this stuff than I do.
Hope this helps.
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