[crashnebulizer]

Hey all, I'm having some problems with my sound-card right now. I'm a geek myself and i haven't been able to figure out a solution for it but hopefully someone else can. I have a soundmax digital audio sound-card. I also have a creative 24 bit external sound-card. I've tried both of these and I can't get my amp to play all the channels of my music. For example, I'll play "ramble on" by led zeppelin and it just wont pick up the acoustic guitar at all. What I use is pretty simple. I put a line-in into my headphone slot and then just play the music that way. What I'd like to figure out is if THIS is the problem. Can I use some other cable (SPDIF, RCA, Etc) to get rid of this annoyance or do i have to buy an entirely new sound-card!? I really hope it's fixable. Any help is appreciated. Any questions: aim - dickhandwhacker. Thanks in advance.

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I suspect you have a phase reversal problem. this happens when (for example) the positive and negative leads to the speakers are reversed on one speaker.
anything that is true mono, coming equally out of both speakers, will cancel out and not be heard correctly, if at all.
this can happen with the signal being fed into an amp as well, with the positive and negative leads being reversed on one side.

I have experienced this personally with the output of an onboard sound card, where the signal was out of phase.

since you said it happens on 2 cards, I would check your wiring to your speakers, and also the wiring of the cable from the sound card to your amp. I would suggest using the soundblaster card, as it will be better quality than the onboard soundmaxx, and I have yet to see a soundblaster have a problem like that.

using the headphone out to drive your amp is fine.

[audioboy]

I suspect you have a phase reversal problem. this happens when (for example) the positive and negative leads to the speakers are reversed on one speaker.
anything that is true mono, coming equally out of both speakers, will cancel out and not be heard correctly, if at all.
this can happen with the signal being fed into an amp as well, with the positive and negative leads being reversed on one side.

I have experienced this personally with the output of an onboard sound card, where the signal was out of phase.

since you said it happens on 2 cards, I would check your wiring to your speakers, and also the wiring of the cable from the sound card to your amp. I would suggest using the soundblaster card, as it will be better quality than the onboard soundmaxx, and I have yet to see a soundblaster have a problem like that.

using the headphone out to drive your amp is fine.

[crashnebulizer]

well see, the whole thing is this. I have another computer that I used to use for my DJ'ing. Now that I have my new laptop, i use this. It did the same thing on the other computer. Albeit, i had a [bleep] sound card on that one too but I also used the soundblaster card with that one too and it still did it. What I'm doing is using a guitar amp that I just bought. It's got RCA in's and it said it should be able to handle music played by cd player and all. And im just putting it into the input jack. I have to emulate the plug though obviously because my line in cable is not a stereo cable. I was thinking maybe i should just buy a line-in to RCA conversion cable. As I said, my amp has RCA inputs. And then just run the USB-driven sound card. What do you think? Tom

[audioboy]

yes, go with the splitter cable. this will go from the 1/8" (mini) headphone jack connection on the PC, to 2 rca jacks. they are about $6 at radio shack. music stores will usually have them too, typically the hosa brand, and may cost up to $10.

depending on what cable you used to feed the guitar amp, you were either getting the phase problem, or not getting one channel at all. you made me pull out the old zeppelin album to check- the acoustic guitar is right channel only, so it sounds like you werent getting the right channel.
that would make sense, since the guitar input to the amp is mono- the positive signal for the left channel appears on the tip of the plug. the right channel wasnt being used.

oops, Im going audio geek on you!

[audioboy]

wanted to ask you also, what programs you using for DJing on your laptop? I have been trying to remember the names of some good programs for a while now...
feel free to PM me with the answer to that if you want to. click on my name, then on the PM option.
Thanx!