[nfbcs] Connecting stereo to Computer

Wed Oct 31 16:56:27 UTC 2012

Do you know what happens if you just plug in the USB cable on the mixer
without connecting it to the line-out on your PC? I will bet that you will
still hear music on your home theater. 

In other words, I think you could get music on your HT by connecting the
mixer to it in the usual way and then plugging the mixer into a USB port on
your PC. I doubt you have to do anything with your PC speakers. I think you
can leave your PC speakers plugged into the line-out on your sound card. 

I'm not saying you would want to do that. I'm saying that what you are
essentially doing is what several of us originally suggested, get a USB
sound card.  I think the mixer is essentially a USB sound card. When you
plug a USB sound card into a Windows PC, Windows automatically sets it as
the default audio device.  So your music and other Windows sounds are heard
on the home theater. The headphone jack is just passed through.   You
probably could mix them if you wanted to. 

The one flaw in my theory is that jaws would normally switch to the USB
sound card too. You'd have to configure jaws to not use the default Windows
audio device.  If you didn't do that, then I don't know why it works.

You know, it occurs to me that you could make this device from a broken USB
head set. I don't know how often you guys break your headsets but mine last
an average of about 6 months. Next time I break one, I think I'll go to
Radio Shack and buy a couple of male RCA jacks to see if I can replace the
headset speakers withRCA jacks.  I haven't done any soldering for a long
time.  But it sounds like fun.

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Doug Lee
Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2012 10:12 AM
To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Connecting stereo to Computer

My understanding is that, in Windows 7 and Vista, you can get the Mixer
device back by checking "Show Hidden Devices" in the Context menu for any
device in the list of sound devices. This is from memory of having done it
on Vista years ago.

On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 09:58:21AM -0500, Peter Donahue wrote:
Hello Brian and everyone,

    Since it has a built-in sound card our mixer will take care of that for
us. It's an Alesis Multi-Mix 8 the same mixer the Missouri Affiliate has and
has served me well. It's the one I use to record activities at our national
conventions. Alesis has a Multi-Mix 4 that would be perfect for addressing
this issue.

    Experience tells me that if I connect the stereo to the RCA out jacks on
the mixer and connect the desktop speakers to the earphone jack via a y
connector JAWS would come through the desktop speakers but not over the HT. 
Since the line-out from the PC would be connected to the mixer via the
RCA-In jacks that frees the line-in jacks on the desktop speakers for
connecting them to the mixer via the earphone jack allowing us to not have
to control the signals sent to both devices without having to disconnect and
reconnect them depending on what device we wish to use.

It's worth a try. If I'm not going to be recording any events in December I
just might drag out that mixer and test things out. Then it's good bye Music
Choice, hello Peter and Mary's personal collection of holiday music and we
have a lot of it.

    Since the mixer is connected to the PC via a USB port audio will come in
to the PC via Line-In allowing us to use Mary's machine for recording. The
machine runs Windows 7. The nice folks at Microsoft removed the "Stereo Mix"

and "What You Hear" settings from Windows 7 over piracy concerns. Research
in to this matter indicates that if the audio coming in via line-in can
still be captured for recording using this method hence we'll be able to
kill multiple birds with one stone.

Peter Donahue

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bryan Schulz" <b.schulz at sbcglobal.net>
To: "NFB in Computer Science Mailing List" <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2012 9:22 PM
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Connecting stereo to Computer

again,

if you don't want jaws coming thru the stereo receiver, you need to buy
another usb sound card/device plain and simple!
Bryan Schulz

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter Donahue" <pdonahue2 at satx.rr.com>
To: "NFB in Computer Science Mailing List" <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2012 8:46 PM
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Connecting stereo to Computer

> Hello John and others,
>
>    We're wanting to do the exact opposite. We want audio from our PC to be
> played over the Ht so we can enjoy programs like past years of Nine
> Lessons
> and Carols from King's College, A Baroque Christmas, documentaries in our
> collection dealing with holiday music of the early 20th Century and
> further
> back and share it with friends and house guests when they come to visit.
> It'll be nice enjoying a nice December evening together with all of the
> Christmas decorations lit up hearing past holiday episodes of Pipedreams,
> Musica Antiqua,   Ancient Voices, performances of Messiah, Bach's
> Christmas
> Oratorio instead of hearing umpteen renditions of Spike Jone's "I'm the
> Angel in the Christmas Play." If you've heard the words of that song a
> better title would be "I'm the Devil in the Christmas Play."
>
> Looks like I'll need to consult some other sources for help with this and
> share the solution with y'all. It would only need there to he a switch to
> allow us to connect the PC line-out from the PC, the PC desktop speakers
> and
> the home theater together so we can push the PC audio to the HT when we
> wish
> to hear our personal collection that way without having to switch the
> line-out cord to the different audio sources. We have a month to figure it
> out.
>
> Peter Donahue
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "John G. Heim" <jheim at math.wisc.edu>
> To: "'NFB in Computer Science Mailing List'" <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2012 2:30 PM
> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Connecting stereo to Computer
>
>
> Okay, the source of the confusion is a comment you made in your original
> message. Your original message said, "Naturally we don't want jaws going
> out
> through the home theater." You can deal with that with the elaborate
> solution I talked about earlier (getting a second sound device) or by
> simply
> silencing it as you say below. Since you asked about it, I assumed you
> weren't happy to simply silence jaws. That's why I explained the more
> elaborate solution.
>
> Well, sorry, after all this, I don't have a solution for you. As I said, I
> just swap the cables when I want to switch from PC speakers to the stereo.
> But you should check if your PC speakers have a headphone jack. You might
> be
> able to plug the cable that goes from the HT into that.
>
> I said I do that swapping all the time but the truth is that I don't do
> that
> any more. I went the opposite direction from what you're trying to do. I
> pretty much listen to everything on my PC now. I have the line-out from
> the
> stereo connected to the line-in on my PC. So I can listen to radio & TV on
> my PC. In fact, what I usually do is connect to the streaming media server
> on my PC via my home network. So I pretty regularly listen to TV shows on
> my
> IPod while walking around the house or out on the deck.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Peter Donahue
> Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2012 12:19 PM
> To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Connecting stereo to Computer
>
> Hello John and everyone,
>
>    Actually you're on to what we're trying to do listen to audio stored
> locally or streams from the Internet over our stereo without having to
> disconnect and reconnect the PC speakers and be able to run RCA cables
> from
> the stereo to an audio connector in order to have both devices connected
> to
> line-out from the PC so we can send the computer audio through the HT when
> we wish to use it for listening and still leave the PC speakers connected
> for when we just want to hear audio from the PC only. Obviously the HT
> would
> be tuned to another audio or video source such as a local radio station or
> the T.V. I hope this makes sense.
>
>    As for JAWS going over the HT when we're listening to audio from the PC
> good old JAWS Key+spacebar followed by letter "S" will stop that in a
> hurry
> and restart JAWS when we're ready to use the PC again! I use it all the
> time. I hope this clears up the confusion.
>
> Peter Donahue
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "John G. Heim" <jheim at math.wisc.edu>
> To: "'NFB in Computer Science Mailing List'" <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2012 11:33 AM
> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Connecting stereo to Computer
>
>
> Well, I am more confused than ever.
>
> You're doing something like streaming on your PC and you want to listen to
> it on the speakers of your HT, right?  Maybe you have Pandora on your PC
> and
> you want to play it on the speakers of your home theater, right? Something
> like that?
>
> I do that all the time. I have a cable with lef/right RCA jacks on one
> end.
> That end plugs into the auxiliary jacks on the stereo. The other end has
> an
> 8mm stereo jack that plugs into the line-out on the PC sound card. The
> problem is that the PC speakers are usually plugged in there. I have to
> unplug the PC speakers to plug in the stereo.
>
> The other problem is that when I'm listening to Pandora or some other
> stream
> on my stereo, the screen reader audio can be heard on the stereo.  I
> actually use a Mac for all this but it's the same concept.  Pretty often,
> my
> friends come over and want me to find some video on UTube. But sometimes
> we
> miss part of it because voiceover is talking.  It is annoying to have the
> screen reader blabbering while you're trying to listen to something on
> UTube.
>
> But these are not the problems you are trying to address?
>
> PS: Pandora is an amazing service. I just found about about it last
> summer.
> If you haven't checked it out, you should. Really good content, hardly any
> ads.
>
>
> ----Original Message-----
> From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Peter Donahue
> Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2012 10:13 AM
> To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Connecting stereo to Computer
>
> Hello John and everyone,
>
>    Since the stereo has the "Auxiliary" mode we could stop JAWS from
> coming
> over the HT when we're not playing music from the PC. Just being able to
> install an adapter in to which the line-out from the PC can be plugged in
> to
> and lines from the PC speakers and going to the HT would also need to be
> plugged in to the same switch. When listening to the T.V. or the radio we
> would need to leave auxiliary so wouldn't get JAWS through the HT but it
> would still come through the PC speakers so we can use the computer while
> listening to other programming through the HT.
>
>    The only other way I know to do this is with a mixer but we're trying
> to
> be budget-conscious so the switch idea would be what we'd need to make
> this
> happen in time for the holidays. We've recorded lots of holiday programs
> in
> years past and want to hear them over the HT when we're tired of hearing
> "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer"you get the idea. I hope this makes
> more
> sense.
>
> Peter Donahue
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "John G. Heim" <jheim at math.wisc.edu>
> To: "'NFB in Computer Science Mailing List'" <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2012 9:47 AM
> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Connecting stereo to Computer
>
>
> Maybe I'm not understanding the question but it seems to me that a simple
> audio switch isn't going to let you have jaws speak through the PC
> spekaers
> and the game or movie audio go to the entertainment center.  I don't think
> there is any logical way around the fact that you need two sound devices
> in
> your PC to do that.
> You could get an audio switch and have the output for both the movie and
> jaws go to the entertainment center or to the PC speakers. But not both.
>
> I think you need a second sound ard for your PC and then you have to
> configure your software to direct its audio output to the appropriate
> device. Probably the easiest thing to do would be to swap out the current
> PC
> speakers for a pair oof USB speakers. Windows would make them the default
> sound device therefore jaws and all other Windows audio would go through
> them by default. Then you'd have to configure your game or movie software
> to
> send its audio through the sound card.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Peter Donahue
> Sent: Monday, October 29, 2012 3:24 PM
> To: NFBnet Blind Talk Mailing List
> Cc: PC audio discussion list. ; NFBnet NFBCS Mailing List
> Subject: [nfbcs] Connecting stereo to Computer
>
> Good afternoon everyone,
>
>    I may have asked this before but can't remember what I was told since
> it's been so long ago. We're wanting to connect our home theatre to my
> wife's computer since it's in our living room with the home theatre. The
> home theatre has an "Auxiliary In" setting that would allow us to do this.
> We have two speakers that are connected directly to the computer. These
> are
> for pc-only audio such as for hearing JAWS when we're on the computer.
> Naturally we don't want JAWS going over the home theatre. When the
> "Auxiliary"setting is activated we would hear the audio from the computer
> over the home theatre which is what we want. One way to do this is with a
> mixer but that's over-kill for now. I thought I heard there are switches
> that one can install to make this possible. I believe the line-out from
> the
> computer plugs in to the switch. It would then be a matter of connecting
> the
> computer speakers to the switch and the lines from the home theatre to it
> as
> well allowing us to hear PC audio through the home theater speakers when
> we
> wish or simply to use the PC speakers for computer audio only. I'd like
> some
> recommendations on such devices and feedback on how usable they are.
> Thanks
> for the assistance.
>
>  Peter and Mary Donahue who are looking forward to hearing holiday concert
> broadcasts in our collection on our schedule not that of the radio
> station.
>
> Peter Donahue
>
> Peter Donahue
>
> "No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper."
> Isaiah 54:17
>
> "While for our princes they prepare
> In caverns deep a burning snare,
> He shot from heaven a piercing ray,
> And the dark treachery brought to day."
> Anonymous
>
>
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-- 
Doug Lee                 dgl at dlee.org                http://www.dlee.org
SSB BART Group           doug.lee at ssbbartgroup.com
http://www.ssbbartgroup.com
"It is not the mountain in the distance which makes you want to stop
walking; but the grain of sand in your shoe."  --Anon

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