After buying a nice set of surround speakers to be connected to the sound card of your computer, we must be careful in making the right connections, so that we can reproduce the sounds in surround sound even on a PC . Speaker placement is one of the most important aspects of achieving balanced surround sound and this may depend on the shape and layout of the room. If our PC is not able to generate good sound, we will necessarily have to focus on a dedicated sound card, like the ones we will show you in the dedicated chapter. If, however, we have problems with Windows, we will show you how to correctly configure the operating system and how to brilliantly solve the main problems we can run into, so that we can enjoy 360-degree sound.
Article Index
- Position of the speakers
- Connection of speakers to PC
- Sound enhancement via dedicated sound card
- Windows configuration
- Other resources
1) Location of the speakers
The set of speakers can be of the 5.1 or 7.1 type, that is, there may be 5 or 7 satellite speakers plus the subwoofer, which will take care of reproducing the bass.
The speakers should be arranged in the room so that they can surround the room, being careful to place the speakers correctly according to their setting. For uniform sound diffusion, you need to place the left and right speakers on the sides of the computer screen, the center speaker in the center above the monitor, the subwoofer at the bottom or on the ground, leaving space around it and the left and right surrounds on the wall opposite the screen. It doesn't matter if the front speakers are closer to each other than the rear satellites, the important thing is that all the speakers are oriented towards the point where we sit, so as to create a truly engaging effect.
READ ALSO: Position the surround sound speakers of home theater 2.1, 5.1 and 7.1
To help us we must focus on systems suitable for use also on PCs; the best plants are listed below:
- OneConcept Woodpecker (74 €)
- Trust Vigor (€ 96)
- Trust Tytan Gaming GXT 658 (€ 102)
- auna Areal 653 (€ 159)
- - Sony BDV-E2100 (€ 239)
- Harman / Kardon HKTS 16 (€ 395)
2) Connecting the speakers to the PC
Wiring, i.e. connecting cables, is another crucial element in achieving the right surround sound.
To begin with, you must correctly connect the outputs of the computer sound card located on the back, with the connectors of the various speakers. Most surround sound systems have colored connectors to facilitate wiring.
Typically, in the computer we will see audio inputs of the following colors :
- Green = Line Out / Front speakers / headphones
- Orange = 1 center speaker and subwoofer
- Black = 2 surround back speakers (5.1, 7.1)
- Gray = 2 intermediate surround speakers (7.1 only)
Generally, the front, intermediate and rear speakers are connected to the amplifier which is the subwoofer and then, from the subwoofer the cables to be connected to the computer start. If we have focused on a speaker model with amplifier, we will not even have to connect all the speakers to the PC: simply use a TOSLINK optical cable to connect the computer audio to the amplifier and consequently obtain the desired sound from the speakers.
The best cable that we can use to make this type of connection is the Optical Digital Audio Toslink IVANKY cable 1.8 m (€ 6).
3) Sound enhancement via dedicated sound card
If our motherboard does not have all the audio outputs to connect the speakers or the integrated audio chip is not up to par, it is better to "expand" the capabilities of the computer by purchasing a dedicated sound card such as the Creative Sound Blaster Z (€ 93) .
This card connects to a PCI-e X1 slot present on all modern motherboards and allows to obtain all the desired audio outputs, both for the direct connection of the speakers and for the connection via optical cable. The audio quality is sublime, since each frequency is sampled by the chip present on it, much more powerful than the audio chip integrated on the motherboards.
4) Windows configuration
Once the cable connection and speaker layout are complete, Windows must be configured to generate multi-channel audio. If we have a computer with Windows 10, we open the Start menu and type Audio, we immediately open the item that will appear, then we click on Audio Control Panel . We will see all the connected audio peripherals, including the speakers or the amplifier (connected with an optical digital cable); select the right speakers, click Configure at the bottom and choose the desired audio channels (based on the number of speakers).
Click on Test to verify the operation of the system, then on Next to confirm the changes.
We can make the use of the speakers for playback definitive by right clicking on the icon of the menu opened a little while ago and selecting Set as default device .
If instead we still use Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, go to Start -> Control Panel -> Audio, locate the audio device, click on it once and then press the Configure button. In the speaker configuration window you can do the listening tests and you can select whether to make it work as stereo or with 5.1 / 7.1, as already seen for Windows 10.
After finishing the configuration (any operating system used), we go to Properties where it is possible, in the Levels tab, to balance the volumes differently for each speaker. The advanced features tab allows you to enable some sound improvements such as bass, surround and equalization management .
For each modification you can listen to a preview which can also be an audio file of your choice (by pressing the down arrow and browsing).
Windows also has the ability to manage the audio volume separately for each program and this can be done by pressing the speaker icon at the bottom right, near the clock, and then clicking on Mixer .
5) Conclusions
Fundamental for everything to work properly is the presence of drivers installed and updated on Windows.
Sound card drivers are generally supplied with your computer and are from Realtek or are included in the dedicated sound card package.
In another article we talked about how to update / install the Realtek or VIA sound card driver .
If a sound does not come out of the computer, even if you connect the headphones to the green jack in front of it, the problem is certainly related to the drivers. To resolve it is better to uninstall them completely by going to Control Panel -> Device Management -> Audio, Video, Game Controllers -> Sound System -> Drivers -> Uninstall .
When the computer restarts, the default Windows drivers will be installed which may not support surround sound but which certainly work. After the recovery we can try with other drivers or use one of the programs that automatically search for the best drivers, such as Driver Booster.
READ ALSO: Improve PC audio and sound and music quality
