Splitters and Joiners for 3.5mm audio

GR63

GR63

GR63

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I have a soundbar for a monitor which has no speakers built in. The monitor 3.5mm output passes the HDMI or DP audio out to soundbar but now I also need to occasionally put 3.5mm audio from another source to that soundbar. Was looking on AliExpress for a joiner cable but all I can find is splitters or cables described similarly.

I wonder, are they the same? I kinda assumed they need to be unidirectional but I am Jon Snow, I know nothing.

Is there something special I need or does a splitter work for me??
 
Joiners are bad idea it's basically shorting the outputs Displayport doesn't carry audio.

I just use a avr as that has plenty of inputs.

You need switcher that switches analogue, and HDMI inputs.
 
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hornetstinger said:
Joiners are bad idea it's basically shorting the outputs Displayport doesn't carry audio.

I just use a avr as that has plenty of inputs.

You need switcher that switches analogue, and HDMI inputs.
Click to expand...

Display port does carry audio.... Well the outputs do and I use DP to HDMI adapters. Audio is on DP on all my Nvidia cards and all my AMD cards so you must have a faulty card if you don't have audio on DP?
 
huh fair enough, I guess since my monitor has no speakers I just presumed it's video only, and I send audio separately to the AVR (old school I prefer seperate video & audio feeds)

Either way you'll need some kind of switch. The problem is if you have HDMI/Displayport and analogue audio.

What is your soundbar? And your other sources?
 
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Hmmm, I'm not sure on the exact mechanics, but a splitter box that allows you to select the "input" of what you're sending to your soundbar sounds like it'll be the better approach to it than just using a Y-cable (as both source signals and interferrence is picked up with the cable, contaminating your sound potentially). Whilst a switcher that you can select your source that you'd like to hear from and would technically isolate the sound signal from the other source (you pick the source you want to send through). So for example, something like this at the Rainforest (I think it's OK to link as OCUK doesn't sell this stuff).


Ali Express should have much cheaper alternatives. But work identically. Basically you can keep the 3.5mm from your monitor (and hence from your PC) into input 1 of this switcher. Your other source goes to the other 3.5mm. The output from the switcher goes to your soundbar. Depending on which one you are intending to listen to, you can use the manual switch to select the source. This model however, doesn't allow you to have both signals go through at the same time. For that, your Y-cable will do the job.

I did something somewhat similarly recently, when I grabbed a sub for my MR4's recently, and use the RCA version of this setup.
 
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