Splitting single line from laptop

[Menotti]

Ok bear with me here as I am a bit of a newbie to this stuff. Say I have 2 sets of ProMedia 2.1 speakers. I have a laptop with a standard 1/8" line out. If I get a Y-adapter (1/8" male to 2x 1/8" female) and plug in both sets of speakers, will there be loss of quality? I'm guessing no because the speakers are amplified?

To piggyback on that, if I have some stereo wire (1/8" connection on each end) to create more distance between the sets, will there be loss in quality?

The idea is that, say, in a party, the basement and the main floor want the same music without having to do significant work/spend money. So, laptop centrally located, Y adapter on the line out, 1/8" stereo wire extention in each direction (say 20 feet) and 2 sets of powered speakers.

Sound viable?

[DrWho]

How far do you want to extend this other line? Yes it will probably degrade the sound quality (specifically you lose some high frequency content), but it's nothing major and for a party setting you prob won't even notice.

Splitting the output source does drop the impedance in half and can have negative results on the sound quality if you implement too many splits, but you should be fine with just one split.

Btw, running wires actually gets quite expensive real fast so you might want to look into some of the wireless options available. I'm a huge fan of the airport express so if you use iTunes for your playback on your laptop then this would be a very viable good sounding option and you would avoid the whole splitter issue (at least I think you can output from the headphone jack while also sending a signal through the airport). And there's a huge wow factor with going wireless that'll make you the life of the party; no unsightly cables all over the place. Hey that even means less trip hazard as well.

[Menotti]

Synching wireless with wired is nearly impossible as lag, network

latency, and bitrate dynamics would cause the sound to not match

up. That includes using a music server with a stream that is

listened to on both machines.

[Menotti]

I'm going to give my original idea a try. Worse comes to worse we

waste $50 in materials to see how it sounds. Thanks for the

advice!

[DrWho]

Having the speakers noncolocated introduces sound delays as well... []

btw, there is very little delay though the airport - there's prob a spec posted somewhere.

[WMcD]

I predict this will indeed work well. I presume the output from the laptop is a headphone out. It is meant to drive headphones with an impedance of about 300 ohms. Therefore it should be able to overcome any reactive components in the feed line. It should also be able to handle the load of serveral line inputs via the splitter.

In one situation I ran about 20 feet of wire from my laptop to a stereo receiver. There was no problem I could hear.

Let us know what you find.

Gil

[JJkizak]

If you split it electronically, fine. Mechanically you will cut the impeadence in half (roughly) increasing distortion and lowering level inputs to both systems.

JJK

[Menotti]

Well I set it up last night as follows:

laptop line out -> 20 foot extension -> 1/8" y adapter

from the adapter, another 40 foot extension to the promedia 2.1s.

from the other end, a 20 foot extension to another set of power

amplified computer speakers.

found some loss of quality, but fine for a party setting.

on a sadder note, i think i toasted the sub on the promedia 2.1s.

there is just a very low frequency hum coming from it, but the

satellites still work. is this a result of the split

impedance? or do you think heat / someone blasting the volume /

other factor cause this?