Will plugging a subwoofer into Center/Sub output disable the stereo transmitting via Audio Out?

[SlightlyDerailed]

Hi there wonderful people!

My Goal is: 2.1 audio output from PC to powered speakers and sub without a a/v receiver.

I currently have this PC: HP P6710F
(you can see all the motherboard/sound specs here: http/h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c02628226&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en#N311 )

I also currently have a pair of m-audio AV 40 powered speakers which I love. They are currently plugged into the 3.5mm audio output.

My question is basically this...will it be easy to add a subwoofer into the mix? The motherboard has six different 3.5mm audio outputs. I'm currently using Line-Out to power the M-Audio's which is presumably in some sort of "Stereo mode". My concern is that when I plug in the subwoofer that the computer will disable stereo via line out in an attempt to transmit 5.1 or something crazy like that.

Am I over thinking? Will it just plug and play?

Also I would love to know if people have a strong opinion on which sub would sound better paired with my m-audio's in a large open living room. I'm debating the Pioneer SW-8MK2 vs the BIC America V1220.

Thank you all so much!

 

[makkem]

Hi
When you plug the sub in you will need to go to the Realtek audio manager right click on the Icon at the bottom right of you screen and set it for 2.1 speakers.(you may need to set it for 5.1 then disable center and rear speakers depending on your version of Realtek)

 

[americanaudiophile]

Down firing subs will shake the floor but not product tight defined bass. Take a look at the subs here:
http/www.parts-express.com/cat/powered-subwoofers/95
For the money the Dayton subs are good value. They even have kits.

 

[SlightlyDerailed]

Thank you both very much for the input. I really appreciate it. I wound up at BestBuy and bought the Pioneer SW-8MK2 on sale new for $120. They also had an open box SONY STR-DH750 receiver for $216. I went ahead and grabbed both with the idea that I can always return them if I'm not impressed.

I think it will be interesting to try and compare using my PC soundcard to the speakers VS transmitting everything via my GPU/HDMI (Radeon 6870) to the receiver. If I don't see a big difference I'll probably return the receiver.

I think I'm missing some cables for the receiver option so I've just hooked up via PC/mobo audio output for now. I have to say I am a bit underwhelmed. I was expecting a bit more vulgarity out of the thing lol. I'm going to look into the reviews on this Dayton sub. Is it possible I need to invest in a 3.5mm to RCA designed specifically for subwoofers?

I'm kind of a newbie...I know ideally I would like everything to be HDMI DTS HD MA via my GPU. I actually have several 24bit albums and 100s of FLACs and I'd like to get the most out of them from a modest 2.1 set up that I can eventually upgrade to 7.2 over a extended period of time.

UPDATE:

Ultimately I would like to use my GPU/HDMI output but for the time being I did run an experiment connecting my PC to the Receiver VIA my onboard SPDIF COAX output.

I found some ancient cables with RCA on both ends (the ones with red and white) from the 90s and tried to connect them to my m-audio's and subwoofer but no sound came out from either. Very surprising to me because I believe I have all the source-input correctly set.

The way I have it set up now (analog 3.5mm audio out) seems unreasonably tame....you can barely feel vibration on the sub when playing music via Winamp.


UPDATE:

Okay so the receiver-RCA to m-audio speakers is not an option with the receiver. It has no RCA output...only speaker wire cable will work apparently per: http/www.sony-asia.com/microsite/helpguide/ha/fy14/STR-DH750/en/contents/TP0000243249.html

I'm fairly sure I'll need a new cable for the subwoofer....on one end it'll have 1 RCA port that plugs into the subwoofer output on the receiver. The other end will need to split into red/white RCA input on the M-Audio speakers, correct?