5.1 Computer Speakers

5.1 speakers for your PC are great! Putting them up to your computer, on the other hand, can be a little tricky. Before I start to talk about bipolar speakers for your PC in more specific terms, or spend just a couple minutes talking about how to hook them up to your computer because this can get a lot of people in a lot of trouble very quickly but it doesn't have to be just know a few simple things.

Using surround sound speakers for your PC is great way to enjoy the computer's audio system to its fullest extent. It makes playing games more fun and watching videos much cooler. In short, I think everybody should hook up these kind of speakers to their computers.

What is a 5.1 system? I've discussed this elsewhere on the site but briefly, the numbers 5.1 means that you have six speakers two in the front two in the back and one in the front center and one subwoofer (or bass speaker). You need to make sure that your computer has an onboard six channel audio setup... most computers these days do so you don't have to worry about it. If you have your speakers set up and they don't work, this may be the reason why. Check your computer's motherboard manual to see for sure.

It's important to know: that there are two main kinds of six channel surround sound speakers... analog and digital. Digital speakers are quite often a lot more expensive: and your computer will need an SPDIF output to take advantage of them. Analog speakers on the other hand, are usually much cheaper and you can install them on just about any PC. Digital speakers usually provide less noise, and they usually use just one cable to connect to your computer. Analog speakers usually connect to your computer using three sets of wires or cables.

So let's talk about Analog speakers quickly: As I said earlier, they will require three sets of wires. These cables are color-coded; one will be yellow, one will be light blue, and one will be light green. These wires are just like the ones you use to hook your DVD player to your TV, the colors are just slightly different. So you should be familiar with the setup. Many analog speakers come with adapters that will convert a color cable into the red and white color cables that are familiar with when you use your DVD player, and in fact, you can use these adapters to plug your speakers into a standard DVD player. Of course you won't need them to get your computer set up.

To hook up analog speakers to your computer, simply plug the cable into its corresponding colored slot on the back of your computer. It's really not much more difficult than that, as long as you can match the colors you can install the speakers. But just in case, here's what the colors refer to... the green color refers to the front input, the blue or light blue color refers to the rear input and the yellow cable refers to the center.

If your computer does not have: a light blue or yellow cable slot, try to match the colors up as close as possible. For instance, your computer should have a pink colored mic slot... try using that one, etc.

Once the cables are connected: you may have to configure your computer to use six channel audio. Usually you can do this by opening the audio driver software properties within the PC itself. Go to your control panel and click on the audio tab or the sound management tab or an icon with a little speaker or something like that. It should be fairly obvious when you look in there. There you should be able to select six channel mode or 5.1 speaker output for surround kits... just look around and it should be fairly obvious. And that's all there is to it!

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