Converting Blu-Ray Home Theater Speakers to Media PC

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Darcy770

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Feb 15, 2014
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Hello all,

I am planning to convert my Blu-Ray players 5.1 speaker system from the Blu-Ray player and use them on a Media PC I plan on building for my Home Theater. The current Blu-Ray player system is the Panasonic SC-BT200, which includes:

  • 2 Front Speakers (Left & Right)
    2 Back Speakers (Left & Right)
    1 Center Speaker
    1 Subwoofer.
The 2 Front, 2 Back and 1 Center speakers all have bare wire clips into the back of them.
SpringClip-connections.png
The Subwoofer is the only exception to these 5 with it being hard wired into the speaker itself. The other end of these wires that connects to the Blu-Ray are as far as I know specifically made for the Blu-Ray player.
The plan is to fit a 5.1 sound card into the Media PC and connect these speakers to it. For the 5 speakers i will purchase 3.5mm audio jack to Open End wires,
Krown-3-5MM-Male-To-SDL000144881-1-26995.jpg
and the Subwoofer will need to be rewired to a 3.5mm audio jack.
The sound card i am looking at using is the Asus Xonar DG 5.1 Channel PCI Sound Card.
(https://www.asus.com/au/Sound-Cards/Xonar_DG/overview/)
(https://www.centrecom.com.au/asus-xonar-dg-51-channel-pci-sound-card)
But I have noticed that the sound card only has four 3.5mm audio inputs meaning that I will also need to split this audio input to two separate inputs (one for left & one for right)
28d5103b-fff5-4a6d-9f92-73f1cdd88c53.jpg._CB333543336_.jpg
so that I can use the front left and right and back left and right speakers to their full functionality.

Does anyone see and potential issues to this planned setup?

Thanks in advance!
 
Solution
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We understand what you want to do, we're just telling you it won't work. Speakers need power amps. Your Blu-ray player has a built in power amp for each speaker (except the 0.1 LFE, that's self powered). They're probably tuned...
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rhysiam

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Mar 24, 2013
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Unless I'm badly mistaken any and every computer sound card is simply a pre-amp. Certainly the one you've chosen is just a pre-amp. You need to run that connection into a separate power amp to actually drive the speakers.

Does your Blu-ray player have HDMI passthrough? Most do, I believe. That way you take the HDMI out from your HTPC, run it into your Blu-ray player (which is functioning as a Home Theatre receieve), it then extracts the audio signal and passes the video through to the TV (or projector - or whatever your display is). That's normally how it's done.
 
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Darcy770

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Feb 15, 2014
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Ok I need to clarify the setup I'm thinking of.

The setup is:
A PC in the Lounge (Home Theatre) that we will play all of our movies and be able to browse the internet on the TV.
The Speakers from the Blu-Ray system connected into the PC (through the 5.1 sound card).
The Video connection will be a HDMI from the PC to the TV that will not carry Audio.

The current Blu-Ray box will not be used and completely replaced by the PC. I am only trying to scavenge the speakers for the new system with the PC.
 
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Darcy770

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Feb 15, 2014
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I didn't know that the sound card would not be able to drive the speakers, I'm a novice with audio.
As for the optical connection, so your saying i can parse in the output from the Sound card in the PC into the Blu-Ray (which amplifies it) then out through the speakers?
 
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rhysiam

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Mar 24, 2013
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We understand what you want to do, we're just telling you it won't work. Speakers need power amps. Your Blu-ray player has a built in power amp for each speaker (except the 0.1 LFE, that's self powered). They're probably tuned optimally for your speakers too.

Power amps required to drive speakers, even 5 relatively small ones like yours, still need solid heatsyncs and decent airflow. You can't get something like that into a PC case.

Ideally in a high end version of the setup you're aiming for everything would connect to a home theatre receiver, which has power amps built in. But unless you want to spend money you don't have to, just use the optical connection as @SkyNet suggests to your Blu-ray unit and use it to drive your speakers.

For what it's worth, I'm doing exactly the same thing with my Samsung Blu-Ray unit. I can't remember the last time I actually put a disc in there, but optical cable from the Home Theatre PC to the BR for audio, HDMI to the TV for video. Works great.
 
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rhysiam

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Mar 24, 2013
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Correct. Get a "Toslink" cable from your sound card to the Blu-Ray. Select that input (probably D-In/Digital In or similar) on your BD player. The, on your PC Windows?) select the correct digital audio out. That'll give you lossless digital audio.

Then use the HDMI to the TV for the display.
 
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Darcy770

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Feb 15, 2014
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Thanks for your help, this was very informative.
 
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