I know that most soundcards have spdif inputs and other audio inputs and can display sound through regular audio woofers and satelite speakers. My question is: Can I really use regular audio speakers with say 275 total watts to watch DVD's, listen to MP3's and other audio formats through my computer? Is there really any difference in quality, experience and etc between computer gaming Speakers with THX and Dolby Surround Sound 5.1 and audio speakers sets with the same features? Does using regular audio speakers damage my pc in any way?
First off you can connect regular speakers to your pc but you have to have some kind of an amplifier to enhance the sound. An economic way of doing this is to use cable with a (male) mini jack end that splits to 2 (male) RCA ends that can line in to a component set or stereo. Now connect the speakers to the speaker slots on the stereo/component set. Using the Aux feature of the component set/stereo you can now play to your hearts desire, with the quality being limited by the sound card of your computer and the amplifier of your stereo and your speakers. Don't expect to get surround sound from these however because these speakers would not be configured with their phases synchronized(or not)to give you the surround sound effect. Ofcourse you could position your speakers to give you a surround sound-like effect(say 4 of them pointing inwards with a mixture or high & low amplitudes) which I have successfully tried but it's not going to be THX or Dolby 5.1 If you are doing this on a budget & you already have the stereo then go ahead an try it. If your stereo supports Dolby 5.1 and you have a compatible Dolby 5.1 speaker system, I suspect that you would get a really rich and life-like sound quality. I have done this in the past for a long period of time and I never had any damage to my sound card or any other hardware component in my PC.
Now this is what I am talking about. Precise, quick and easy to understand information. Thankyou JamzBond. This information will be shaken not stirred I assure you.
