low sound

[nancy]

have a petiumpro 200mhz,win98 plus, installed sound card, drivers fine no conflicts, checked volume, all software, reseated sond card, speakers are in line out, can here sound from cd player on speakers, if i put my ear to speaker. No sound in windows. any ideas?????

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Is the 4 wire analog cable connected between the CD-ROM and the soundcard?

In Volume controls is there anything muted?

[nancy]

yes I have the wire connected from sound card to cd-rom. I have sound in windows and cd-rom, but I have to put my ear to the speaker to hear its that low.I also have a multifunction adapters in my device mgr.with the same drivers as the sound,video and game controllers. help

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Multifunction or multimedia?

Are the speakers powered or nonpowered type? Are they 'on' and turned up? Can you try them elsewhere? Did you have onboard sound and now have added a soundcard?

The more details and story behind what is going on the less posts it will take to narrow down the problem. Tell us a storybook not just a jotted note.

When you installed the card the first time did Windows discover it when you booted up?

[nancy]

thanks ted,when you said are they powered, i started thinking,so I tryed both speakers i had, one were mounted speakers, and the other were cyber-acoustics 0.5 to 2 watts input on my other computer same thing low sound, so i went to radio shack got powered speakers for 15.00 and great sound. thanks again. by the way do you know why you have to have powered speakers? NANCY

[pentachris]

by the way do you know why you have to have powered speakers?

I don't think the PCI slot carries enough voltage to push speakers much above line level. And even if it did, it would be more of a strain than many power supplies are capable of dealing with.

[nancy]

thanks chris for the answer to my?

[nancy]

back to my pentiumpro 200mhz pc, after i refromated the drive loaded win, then win98 plus. Im trying to load back the drivers for the nic card, sound card. Ive tryed removing them.add new hardware but I cant load the drivers

[nancy]

not to get confused with the pc i just fixed, I have 5 pc and a LAN.

[Fruss Tray Ted]

I like to load the drivers in Device Manager when reformatting. Works slick.

[nancy]

at what point when reformatting do you load the drivers

[Fruss Tray Ted]

I should have stated 'after' formatting and installing OS.

I do the display first, then anything on the motherboard like nics or sound etc. Then I move on to internal peripherals like soundcards then other peripherals like printers, scanners etc.

It's always good to install one at a time to verify the program before moving on to another. This leads to a lot of reboots but at least I feel better about it that way knowing it works.

[Paleo Pete]

Back to an earlier question...

by the way do you know why you have to have powered speakers?

Most sound cards these days have only a line output, which is a much lower impedance (resistance) signal than speaker output. You heard the difference by plugging in powered speakers...a lot of older sound cards, usually ISA cards, had both speaker and line output jacks, letting you use either powered or non powered speakers. In recent years almost everyone has gone to powered speakers, so line out has gradually become the standard.


The voltage required to push speakers is barely measurable, well under 1V, the computer should have no problem pushing it. I can push my 2X12" guitar cabinet with a transistor radio...Older 386 machines with 200 watt or less power supplies and ISA slots did it quite well, with the Sound Blaster and earlier cards...I have one with only an RCA jack for speaker out... Came out of a 286 I think...

For the drivers, I'm with FTT on that one, I install drivers the very first thing after installing Windows. Especially if motherboard drivers are required. Other things like NIC cards, sound cards, modems etc, are installed immediately after motherboard drivers and before any other software.

With win98 you should be able to install drivers just about any time though...try booting into Safe Mode and removing ALL instances of the problem card from Device Manager, reboot and try the hardware/driver installation again.

[nancy]

thanks abunch pete, ive decided to reformat, and load win 98 back on,then ill try to load the drivers i got from drivers guide.com its for a sound, and modem riptide coneaxt card smart technologs I downloaded it but it wouldnt work, maybe i didnt download it right, but after 3hours trying to load it, forget it it woild be easyer to buy a sound card, and nic card with the drivers. But im going to give it one more shot. thanks again for all your help nancy

[pentachris]

The voltage required to push speakers is barely measurable, well under 1V, the computer should have no problem pushing it.

Looks like I was wrong.

It's not the first time, and I'm sure it won't be the last.

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Pete,
Correct me if I'm wrong but I think you mean wattage when you mention impedance in certain instances.

No matter what the impedance of line out is, it has NOT the wattage to drive speakers to any degree. Line voltage is usually 1.5 volts at max. and applied across say an 8 ohm speaker is very faint. Try a penlight battery on one speaker then try a D-cell. The click should be the same because it is the same voltage. But we know the D-cell has more current capacity. It is the resistance/impedance of the speaker which governs the amount of current passing through the circuit hence the same 'volume' (decibel) of click. Try a 9v battery compared to a 1.5v D-cell and you'll see the difference voltage makes.

Power outputs from amplifiers have to equate to wattage in only 2 ways: High voltage x low amperage (the old 'tube' type amplifiers) or low voltage x high amperage (the transistor type amps) Either way, to get watts you multiply volts times amps then apply that across impedances and you can formulate decibels if you also have the SPL (sound pressure level at 1 watt) rating.

Impedance matching is important to quality of sound and sometimes volume level too. Examples:

High impedance michrophones cannot be used in a low impedance circuit. Their resistance is too great and do not allow enough current in the preamplified circuit to be heard well enough.

Low impedance mics. on the other hand, if wired to suit WILL work in a high impedance circuit but will most likely be distorted, dirty sounding because the preamp's circuit is being overdriven due to lack of enough resistance to keep the current at a clean (non squarewaved) level.

Therefore matching your components is very important. But there's nothing like the sound of a guitar going through an overdriven speaker that's just about to BLOW!!! Been there, done that...

[Paleo Pete]

Nope, I meant impedance...resistance...

A line signal is a weak, low impedance signal, intended to be sent to a power amp. A speaker signal is high impedance, intended for a speaker. Same as the difference between guitar signals and microphone signals used in a band. The line signal will be the same low inpedance as a mic signal or similar. That's why you can run a tape or CD player through a PA system with no problems.

Guitar cords are two conductor, high impedance, while the mic is a 3 conductor, low impedance signal. Wattage is the same either way, send a 100 watt line signal from the line out in a guitar amp, it's still a 100 watt amp, but the impedance is much lower than the signal going from the amp to the speakers. With the line signal the wattage might be lots lower too, it's not going to a speaker, it's going to another power amp...but the impedance is definitely different all the way around. I've blown amps trying to send speaker signals to them before I found out what the difference was...

Here's some good info, High and Low Impenance I learned a bit from this, the 3 conductor cable doesn't necessarily imply low impedance, although the mics used with them are sold as low impedance...it means it's a "balanced" signal...

Here's a link to someome in the UK selling a High to Low Impedance adapter to go from high impedance car stereo output to a Line signal in order to run it through a power amp.

Look up Low Impedance on google, you'll find tons of info (and advertising) but I didn't find much with a search for "line out signal". Maybe some tinkering with keywords would do better...but the above should give you the idea I'm trying to get across about the signal impedance...I think what threw you off track was the terminology, you seem to have the general idea already...

Wattage, I won't argue, the wattage may be different too, I'm not sure...never worried about it as long as I have the right impedance signal going to my amp so I won't fry another one... My Kustom 2X12 cabinet handles the old 130 Watt Peavey (tubes, of course) quite well, that's about as far as wattage is a concern...

What confusticates me is the Whirlwind article stating that "The output from most electronic devices in an audio system will be of low impedance in nature, usually 150 Ohms or less." My guitar amp is stamped 4 Ohm on back, beside the output jacks...and the speaker signal is called "high impedance", same as the car stereo output...HUH???

[Fruss Tray Ted]

We're reaching the same result but from differing angles or views. We're not 'melding' the 2 together. But we both mean well. There are so many factors that you can't talk about one or two without the need to include them all. This is where we 'lose' each other.

The section on 'Low Feeds High' in the Whirlwind article supports my example of 'you can use a low imp mic in a high imp circuit but not vice versa'. The source (mic) must be lower than the equipment's (amplifier's) impedance or the resistance to flow will be too great and signal to noise will become a factor because you will have to amplify it even more to be at audible levels. But this is STILL at line level which in most amps is approx 1.5 volts but has a range as in the case of Peavey's that use 2 volts as an average.

I don't like the firehose example AT ALL. But it does have one point if: You consider the nozzle's adjustment as the volume pot in a preamp of an amplifier. When you close the nozzle (ie increase the pot's resistance) you slow the flow of water (ie decrease the applied wattage).

The 4 ohm stamping on your amplifier is a DC static reading (ohmeter) intended to mean what the wattage rating will be when applied to a 4 ohm cabinet (2: 8 ohm speakers in parallel or 'daisy chained'). Many guitar amps state in the manual what the wattage delivery will be at several cabinet ohm ratins. When an AC signal (varying frequencies) is applied over coils (speaker voice coils) the impedance is MUCH greater due to the nature of coils themselves that with frequency increase so does resistance increase. A capacitor is the opposite. With higher frequencies the resistance decreases. This is why simple passive crossovers for horns and tweeters have the coils wired to ground and the capacitors usually in-line. They both protect the sensitive (low watt) horns this way.

The difference between line and speaker out although impedances may or may not be different I reiterate signal strength or wattage is the biggie.

Try a portable radio (one with line out and ext. speaker out) into the line in of some device:
Using the line out (which only involves the preamp circuit): impedance matches, sound is clean as a result and the volume acts normally.
Using the speaker out (which involves both preamp and power circuits): The signal is overdriven and distorted whether or not the impedances are matched UNLESS: You lower the volume control to approximate the correct 1: voltage level by 2: correcting the impedance by increasing the potentiometer's resistance. But even if you lower a line signals resistance it will only supply the low watts of the preamp.

All 'sound systems' have 2 actual amplifiers. A preamp(lifier) which is about powerful enough to handle headphones but is gentle enough to not destroy delicate wiring in a michrophone for example. Then there is the power side of a power amplifier consisting of and maybe combo's of: tubes, transistors and MOSFETs. Put a mic in this circuit and you might hear a click just before the burning smell. Guitar amps have both pre and power amps. Strictly power amps for PA stacks do not. Ther rely on the preamp in the mixers and other devices to provide a line level input to their inputs.

That High/Low adapter? Look at the input and output. The output is MUCH higher impedance than the input. Why? You need to reduce the speaker (high wattage) signal to tolerable levels for the amplifier. Basically it is a power soak (but not in the true sense) and the settings are those pots (potentiometers or manual varistors) called 'set level's.

I would enjoy talking about this all afternoon and then some but typing is too slow even though I've graduated to 3 fingers!

Nancy,
I apologize for stealing your thread but bass players and guitarists NEVER get along!!!

[Steve]

But I play both bass and guitar!

No wonder I hardly ever agree with me....

[nancy]

I have another problem its under storage please help, and emails welcome