Switchable surround sound setup

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20 May 2007
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866
At the moment I've got my plasma on one wall and my monitor at right angles to it on the other wall.

I'm wondering how hard it would be to set up some kind of switching device so that taking one side for example the front left becomes the rear left and the front right becomes the front left depending on wether I'm looking at the plasma or the monitor?

I think I'd probably also have to have two indepedant centres.
 
Soldato
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Sounds emminently doable. You could probably do it with some double pole double throw (DPDT) switches. You just need to come up with the circuit diagram. For example if it is just a case of one speaker having to toggle between FL and RL, you put a wire from the speaker positive to the centre terminal of the DPDT swtch, then wire from the top terminal to the FL positive source from the amp and the bottom terminal to the RL positive source. You may also need to do this for the negative wire for the speaker also, i.e. have two switches per speaker, both of which you have to flip to toggle that speaker. In theory the negtives should all be common so it shouldn't matter but something tells me it might. Do the circuit diagram to be sure.

edit:

something like this...

swdpdtil5.jpg


With the switch up, speaker 1 would get FL, and Speaker 2 would get RL, switch down and it would reverse.

Thinking about it, I think you definately do need to have a separate negative switch also, due to it being an effective AC signal to each speaker.
 
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Associate
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Sounds a bit more complicated than I'd hoped, it might be as easy as not just to stick my head under the desk and swap the wires over (they're only phonos)
 
Associate
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I'm guessing you're monitor at the back is a pc?

Route the audio through the PC and use some software to flip the 'output' on the speakers when you're using the pc and just do pass through when you're watching the plasma.
 
Associate
OP
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20 May 2007
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I'm guessing you're monitor at the back is a pc?

Route the audio through the PC and use some software to flip the 'output' on the speakers when you're using the pc and just do pass through when you're watching the plasma.

Yes that right, I'm using powerdvd to play the blurays and rather than having two set of speakers I'd like to be able to use one set and flip the outputs around as appropriate.
 
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