Comments on: How to get all 8 speakers working in a 7.1 creative inspire set without a creative sound card : Solved

By: Hyperlord

Hyperlord — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 14:02:46 +0000

Hi there,

awessome, I love the internet.
I bought the Insprire T7xxx 7.1 System with the the Audigy 2 ZX Platinium a couple of years ago. Today I upgraded my system and use the onboard solution. I ran in exactly that described problem and thought, I just need a fourth cable.

Your very good article solved the problem for me, but I want to add, that you might check that switch on the subwoofer, too. No upmixing and stuff, straight 7.1

Again, thank you for sharing this.

By: jordan314

jordan314 — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 06:23:34 +0000

I don’t think making your own cable will work, I don’t know how to make a four-pole AV cable.

By: hellmind

hellmind — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 22:01:14 +0000

Phill I’m having the same problem , I tried to make my own 3-4 cable but isn’t work!,
Can you upload a diagram to see what you did?
(my msn is hellmind a t gmail.com)

By: phill

phill — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 10:55:19 +0000

Opps! I meant to say the left and right channels are actually the white and yellow cables while the red is for the side channel (More trickery). You can check the polarity using a multimeter anyway :D

By: phill

phill — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 10:38:08 +0000

I have an x-fi with 3 3.5mm plugs and tried to use a standard 3.5mm Plug (4 Pole) To 3 RCA A/V Cable for 7.1 speaker hookup. This does not allow he side channels to work.

So after a little checking all they have done is reverse the polarity of the side channels! OMG very sneaky …

I have made a quick fix by making two female to male rca cables which reverse the polarity of the input rca signal.

All you do next is get a standard 3.5mm Plug (4 Pole) To 3 RCA A/V Cable, connect the left and right (red and white) channels as normal to your amp, then connect the yellow (side channel) cable to the converter cable then connect the converter cable to your left or right side channel input on your amp and it works fine :D

This is HEAPS cheaper than buying a “special” cable :)

By: LanceMan

LanceMan — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 19:23:54 +0000

I spent a little over a week dealing with the Creative support people trying to find out why the 4/4 cables in their diagram are not in the box and asking for help setting up my speakers – all to no avail. I also did a bunch of searching on the net trying to find and answer and could only come up with a few hints which pointed to “no hope unless you have a creative sound card”. I found your excellent how-to article complete with better diagrams than those from Creative abount an hour ago. I now have all the 8 speakers I paid for working nicely. No new sound card, only an $8.00 cable I bought last week. Thank you very much for an excellent article – well done!!

By: DJS

DJS — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 12:28:57 +0000

Hi, I have a similar problem, but the opposite way round. I got a creative sound card with my pc, which has 3x 3.5mm outputs for 7.1 sound (i.e. 2x 4pole and 1x 3pole). My speakers however have 4x 3poles. So i am looking for the cable you have, but am unable to buy it anywhere.

I also had another sound card from creative the Audiology 2 NX with which came the mysical 4x 3pole to 4x 3pole cable that your looking for.

So how bout we swap?

Dave.