I'm running a desktop with a ASUS Prime Z370-P LGA 1151 motherboard. It's bothered me for a while that I can't make use of all of my speakers...I've just got left and right, but I have an older speaker set with enough parts for 5.1
Because the speaker set is older, it's only got three 1/8" inputs for LR, LR, sub. My motherboard only has a single 1/8" output jack, and I don't have a separate sound card.
I assume I could buy another sound card! I have plenty of space. But the motherboard's onboard sound is fine, so that seems like overkill. I've looked at options to change the motherboard's microphone jack to an audio jack, but I don't really want to do that. Or, I suppose there might be a sort of cable I could get that could convert from something digital into an analogue 1/8" jack. I've also seen wee modules that plug into USB or something, and have a battery of analogue jacks available. Are those any good?
Ideally I'd wants something internal (for the sake of aesthetics) and cheap. If I have to pick one, I'd pick cheap. I feel like this is a problem that should be pretty simple to solve. What's the best way to go about fixing it?
Edit: Sorry, forgot to mention. The motherboard has plenty of USB spots, a spare HDMI, and the three analogue input/output jacks (one of which I'm currently using, and I'd rather not mess with changing the inputs to outputs); and the graphics card has a couple of spare DisplayPorts (I have no idea if running audio through one of those is feasible? It sounds like a silly idea, but until I wound up with this card I had never heard of a DisplayPort so who knows!)
Because the speaker set is older, it's only got three 1/8" inputs for LR, LR, sub. My motherboard only has a single 1/8" output jack, and I don't have a separate sound card.
I assume I could buy another sound card! I have plenty of space. But the motherboard's onboard sound is fine, so that seems like overkill. I've looked at options to change the motherboard's microphone jack to an audio jack, but I don't really want to do that. Or, I suppose there might be a sort of cable I could get that could convert from something digital into an analogue 1/8" jack. I've also seen wee modules that plug into USB or something, and have a battery of analogue jacks available. Are those any good?
Ideally I'd wants something internal (for the sake of aesthetics) and cheap. If I have to pick one, I'd pick cheap. I feel like this is a problem that should be pretty simple to solve. What's the best way to go about fixing it?
Edit: Sorry, forgot to mention. The motherboard has plenty of USB spots, a spare HDMI, and the three analogue input/output jacks (one of which I'm currently using, and I'd rather not mess with changing the inputs to outputs); and the graphics card has a couple of spare DisplayPorts (I have no idea if running audio through one of those is feasible? It sounds like a silly idea, but until I wound up with this card I had never heard of a DisplayPort so who knows!)
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