[nfbcs] Connecting stereo to Computer

Wed Oct 31 02:02:59 UTC 2012

Peter,

You may be ablt to use a switch or even a Y-Chord.

Best regards,

Steve Jacobson

On Tue, 30 Oct 2012 20:46:18 -0500, Peter Donahue wrote:

>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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