Joining Audio Lines

I have a couple of audio lines (one from an xbox, and one from an xbox
360) that I would like to simultaneously feed to a set of powered
speakers. It's not that I necessarily want to have the sound overlap,
it's just that I don't want the complication of having to select which
audio is routed to my speakers.

Without any expectation of it working, I ran the two inputs into the
"back" of a three-way miniplug splitter, and use a coupler to connect my
speakers to the "front" of said splitter. Not surprisingly, the level
to the speakers is very low, and I suspect would be lower if I plugged
in a third line.

Do I really have to buy some sort of amplifier to get this to work as I
would like? Am I stuck with a switch for a low-cost solution?

Thanks as always for your speculations.

On Mon, 22 Oct 2007 03:54:49 GMT, Grinder
<grinder@no.spam.maam.com> wrote:

>I have a couple of audio lines (one from an xbox, and one from an xbox
>360) that I would like to simultaneously feed to a set of powered
>speakers. It's not that I necessarily want to have the sound overlap,
>it's just that I don't want the complication of having to select which
>audio is routed to my speakers.
>
>Without any expectation of it working, I ran the two inputs into the
>"back" of a three-way miniplug splitter, and use a coupler to connect my
>speakers to the "front" of said splitter. Not surprisingly, the level
>to the speakers is very low, and I suspect would be lower if I plugged
>in a third line.
>
>Do I really have to buy some sort of amplifier to get this to work as I
>would like? Am I stuck with a switch for a low-cost solution?
>
>Thanks as always for your speculations.

You have only three options.

1) A passive splitter that attenuates each signal from the
other, lowering the signal level significantly. You already
have that.

2) A switched input, where you (or electronics) have to
choose the input.

3) An amplifed splitter, where the loss is offset by a gain
stage.

Essentially, yes if you don't want to switch outputs,
(inputs to speaker amp), you have to disconnect the other
outputs through a switch, or amplify the signal. IMO,
disconnecting the other inputs is audibly superior but some
might argue that depending on the devices' audio output
stage quality and the following amp quality, it may not make
much different to have an active, amp'd stage inbetween.