Solved Best business desktop?

The control unit being "missing" was confusing me

Way I see it the green and Pink cables from the rear of the control unit should be plugged into the green and Pink jacks at the rear of the PC The blue multi plug connects to the control in on the Woofer, and the speakers plug into the rear of the woofer box using the Red & White "Phono" plugs

The green and pink jacks on the control unit are simply straight through connectors to use a pair of headphones [Green] or Microphone [pink] bypassing the system completely

The only thing that is a little confusing is the black single pole Jack attached to the control unit - only thing that makes sense it it is an auxiliary In for connecting an MP3 player or similar device to the system

cereberus said:

Without a definition of "best", the question is basically meaningless.

It is like asking "What is the best business car"?

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Best girl

I just checked in, but have to run cause I have a very busy schedule for today but am VERY pleased to see all this to read later.

I did plug into the head phone of the Dell when I first set it up the other day with very poor sound, one speaker and no woofer.
I have not had time to play with that computer because this is a rush rush weekend for me.
I am hooked up to my Acer because all my business is on it and easier to get to being rushed.

THANK YOU for all these replies, and I will be back to read all for thumbs up when time permits.
I love the rca to 3.5mm adapter one I briefly saw IF that will do the trick for the 2.1 speaker set up, I am using on my Acer desktop.

hdmi said:

Wrong. It hooks up to the PC via one 3.5mm TRRS (not to be confused with TRS) jack named "Audio In":

The RCA connectors are used to hook the Left + Right speakers ("L" and "R") up to the Woofer unit:

The topmost cable in the pic above ("Control In") is used to hook the Woofer unit up to the Control unit:

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If the speaker system has a 3.5 mm output plug, then it should be able to plug them into the headphone jack on the computer. Unless the headphone jack is located in an inconvenient place, I don't see why another soundcard is needed.

barman58 said:

The control unit being "missing" was confusing me

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Not enough clearvoyance skills, man!

barman58 said:

Way I see it the green and Pink cables from the rear of the control unit should be plugged into the green and Pink jacks at the rear of the PC The blue multi plug connects to the control in on the Woofer, and the speakers plug into the rear of the woofer box using the Red & White "Phono" plugs

The green and pink jacks on the control unit are simply straight through connectors to use a pair of headphones [Green] or Microphone [pink] bypassing the system completely

Click to expand...

On the back of the Dell Vostro, there are no separate green and pink jacks. Instead, the Vostro uses only a single black jack (blackjack?) named "Universal Audio Jack" (see number 14 in the pic I posted previously) that is located on the front panel of the Vostro. I am not sure if this jack is TRS or TRRS. TRRS would make the most logical sense to me, as that would allow it to be used not only for either connecting a microphone or connecting a headphone, but also for connecting a headset, or the combination of BOTH a microphone AND a headphone─hence the "Universal" in "Universal Audio Jack" if what I suspect is true. In one of my previous replies to this thread I gave a link to a short adapter cable on Amazon UK that would allow either using the combination of both a microphone and a headphone or using the type of headset that uses one green 3.5mm male TRS jack, one pink 3.5mm male TRS jack. That is, still only assuming that what I suspect is true. Either way, you'd still have to check on that, and, also I would doublecheck by reading the documentation from Dell just to see if everything is working correctly as intended (i.e., if it turns out that something isn't, if one or more of those specific functions that meet their detailed description of "Universal Audio Jack" turn out to be broken, then they need to fix that under warranty), and to avoid any additional unnecessary confusion that should in fact be easy enough to avoid, at least if said documentation has no gap in it when it comes to this particular part of the subject.

barman58 said:

The only thing that is a little confusing is the black single pole Jack attached to the control unit - only thing that makes sense it it is an auxiliary In for connecting an MP3 player or similar device to the system

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What do you mean, black? On the back of the Control unit, I can see only a single 3.5mm jack, named "Audio In", which appears to be some sort of grey-ish blue color, and, on the front of the Control unit, I can see only a 3.5mm pink (microphone input) and a 3.5mm green (headphone output) jack. There are no other jacks on the Control unit from what I can see.

Edit to my post: Looking at the pics of the computer I see that there is a speaker output on the back. It should be a simple plugin the speaker and then play.

Was looking at the ACER layout from earlier in thread

I agree with @Winuser the single green plug from the control unit into the Green jack on the rear of the Dell should feed the Gateway 2.1 speaker system (by the way I assume that the 12V AC input on the rear of the subwoofer is for 110/120V AC supply? or a 12V from a power) supply

I have seen the Mic and headphone Jack being placed at the front of cases recently as this makes things easier to access for use, Of course in this setup you could use either the jacks on the control unit or the front mounted Headphone and Mic jacks

Winuser said:

If the speaker system has a 3.5 mm output plug, then it should be able to plug them into the headphone jack on the computer.

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That depends. The headphone output jack on the computer isn't the same as a Line output jack, and cannot necessarily always be used interchangeably.

Winuser said:

Unless the headphone jack is located in an inconvenient place, I don't see why another soundcard is needed.

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I didn't say it is needed. The only reason why I recommend it is because it may help to improve the quality of the sound, which BTW it very often does, i.e., in spite of the fact that the one that I recommend is still only a fairly cheap one IMO, and, in addition, it allows the microphone/headphone cable to be moved from the front panel of the computer to the back of the computer so that, for example, each time when you want to use the front USB ports to plug in your USB flash drive, you don't have to worry about accidentally hitting this cable, which can be important because female 3.5mm jacks are somewhat sensitive to this type of common accident. It all greatly depends on what exactly it is that you are looking for and what your expectations are.

The onboard sound of PC motherboards (and laptops) has improved over the years, but the vast majority of them have limited sound quality compared to a decent internal PCIe soundcard, which the Asus Xonar SE 5.1 definitely is. Audio is part subjectiveness, part science─but this doesn't also mean that the science part will necessarily always be irrelevant or that listening with your own ears while giving your ears sufficient time to adapt to a different sound signature won't let you hear differences, that would have gone unnoticed if doing rapid switching between test samples. ABX comparisons are fundamentally flawed, as they skew test results toward "hearing no difference"─even more so in untrained listeners. All of this I can prove.

The best thing here is that my current workstation case has a full set of 5.1 Jacks plus has an switchable Headphone amp for the front audio out jack - I have a USB Mic and USB Soundbar for general sounds, I also use a connection via SPDIF Optical to a 5.1 surround system, and several sets of Bluetooth headphones and headsets so never have anything plugged into the jacks

barman58 said:

I agree with @Winuser the single green plug from the control unit into the Green jack on the rear of the Dell should feed the Gateway 2.1 speaker system

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No, the green plug is just an extension cord for the headphone, just like the pink one is just an extension cord for the microphone. One purpose of that is to make it easier to plug/unplug the headphone/microphone/headset, as the front panel of the Control unit can be much easier to reach than the back of the computer. In fact the front panel of the computer might be harder to reach also, depending on where exactly the computer is standing. I.e., for a lot of people, the Control unit of the speaker package tends to be much easier to place in a convenient location when compared to the computer. Further, the female audio connectors on the back of a computer typically are soldered to the computer's motherboard so they cannot easily be replaced, therefore it makes sense to use a solution that will let you avoid plugging/unplugging them more frequently than should really be needed, regardless of whether the back of your computer is easy for you to reach. But anyway. The "Audio in" on the back of the Control unit is what should be used for feeding it from the green Line output on the back of the Dell, i.e. by using a male-to-male black 3.5mm TRS cable. The reason why this plug, unlike the green one or the pink one, can be detached from the back of the Control unit is to make it more convenient to quickly hook up another line source (such as a separate CD player, mp3 player, MiniDisc player, DVD player, preamplifier, etc.) to the speaker package. Whereas the green and the pink was assumed in 2005 to be more generally dedicated to the computer due to the high popularity of TeamSpeak and Skype because, how else were you going to talk to all your gaming friends? I know this because I was there too.

barman58 said:

(by the way I assume that the 12V AC input on the rear of the subwoofer is for 110/120V AC supply? or a 12V from a power) supply

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It's an external 12V DC power supply.

barman58 said:

I have seen the Mic and headphone Jack being placed at the front of cases recently as this makes things easier to access for use, Of course in this setup you could use either the jacks on the control unit or the front mounted Headphone and Mic jacks

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Yeah, but if your computer is on the floor (not recommended IMO, as there's typically too much dust down there...) or on a small plinth beneath your desk, then the jack may still be a tad harder to reach excepting maybe if it's in the top of the case near the front (in lieu of being at the front near the top) so that it points vertically up (or in some cases diagonally toward you). Whereas if you put your computer on top of your desk, then you might have to get up from your chair each time, so, for example, putting the Control unit right next to your screen can still be better, it simply depends.

Unless @marne wants a better sound card I hope that he can get the speakers working with the speaker output jack on the back of the computer.

The hardwired plugs, (green [Audio-In] & & Pink [Mic-In], on the control unit are inputs to the speaker system. The two front facing sockets on the control unit are extensions, [possibly amplified in the case of the Headphone and may be easier to use than the alternates on the system case. I would suggest that as they are for Headphones, and Mic that these would be only used when required.

The issue in this setup is the case, as there is no rear Mic-in socket, so use of the Mic-in plug from the control unit would need to be routed to the front of the case ( while the audio in is out of sight at the rear )

I think this is due to is that the older speaker units are from an age that all inputs were on the rear of the case and the case follows modern practice on adding them to the front / Top of the case.

I would suggest that the system is wired only with the audio-in and if and when headphones or a MIC are needed these are plugged into the multi use ports at the top front of the case

The potential issue here is that if the speaker system is set up to automatically mute the speakers when headphones are plugged into the control unit then it would be better to use the Headphone socket on the control unit ( the Mic does not have any auto switching that I have seen so should not have any issue using the On Case Socket).

The most elegant solution to the lack of a rear Mic-In socket to facilitate the design of the speakers is to add an additional Mic-In socket to the case rear, by use of a small USB to Mic-In adaptor ( this would also include an extra audio In/Out not required here )

If the audio quality is not as good as it used to be on the old system then the use of a USB sound card/unit could be used to improve the output quality and solve the issue of the missing rear Mic In socket

barman58 said:

The hardwired plugs, (green [Audio-In]

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The pale green hardwired plug is not "Audio In". Rather, it is an extension for the computer's headphone output. The "Audio In" is a pale grey-ish blue colorored female TRS jack on the back of the Control unit, so definitely NOT a hardwired plug.

99% of "Offices" where I used to work onsite usually had adequate PC's but Oh Dear - they always seemed to stint on Monitors and any sort of decent graphics. Possibly because some offices didn't have the space.

Nowadays I tend to work remotely and with a lot of cloud and VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) providers the actual computer hardware can run almost anything whether Engineering simulations to basic Boring "Officy" type stuff. All you need if you (or your client / workplace) have a decent Cloud service is adequate Internet and enough power for decent graphics and multiple monitors (2 at a minimum).

When I look at people in "Open Plan" offices today nothing much seems to have changed -- still smallish (and single) monitors with max 1080p resolution. I wouldn't even THINK of doing any I.T gig with less than 2 monitors and decently large ones at that and at least one of those having 4K UHD resolution.

If you are out in the field with a "Stand alone" laptop - then a "rugged" build might be more important than the fastest CPU etc. If you are on an Oil rig, a Volcano monitoring station, or a repair part of geothermal energy station for example would be a case for such a type of laptop.

There's no single definition of a "Business Computer". The question probably has more answers than the classical "How long is a piece of string" one.

Cheers
jimbo

hdmi said:

The pale green hardwired plug is not "Audio In". Rather, it is an extension for the computer's headphone output. The "Audio In" is a pale grey-ish blue colorored female TRS jack on the back of the Control unit, so definitely NOT a hardwired plug.

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Ok so the Black TRS plug in the image has another TRS plug on the opposite end that connects the Pale Blue Line-In on the control unit to the Lime green Line-out on the rear of the computer, that would make sense.

If the headphone and mic extensions are needed they would require some form of splitter to connect the front Top "Universal Audio Jack" to the Extension Cables

@barman58, it's been a while so I could be wrong. Didn't the old speaker systems that had a microphone input have two plugs going to the soundcard? One for the speakers and one for the microphone.

They are always a single for each in my recollection, [of course the connectors were slightly different as the Headphones supported Left, Right, and return connections whereas the Mic only supported the signal and return], this system with the Dell tower is a specific issue due to Dell using a multi function port, [As used in Cell phones and games consoles], with these ports you have both Mic and Headphones in the same universal socket that needs a plug to have Left, Right, Mic Signal, and a return - There should be adaptors to convert this plug to the two older style sockets needed by the speaker system port extensions

EDIT - There are adaptors available

jimbo45 said:

99% of "Offices" where I used to work onsite usually had adequate PC's but Oh Dear - they always seemed to stint on Monitors and any sort of decent graphics. Possibly because some offices didn't have the space.

Nowadays I tend to work remotely and with a lot of cloud and VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) providers the actual computer hardware can run almost anything whether Engineering simulations to basic Boring "Officy" type stuff. All you need if you (or your client / workplace) have a decent Cloud service is adequate Internet and enough power for decent graphics and multiple monitors (2 at a minimum).

When I look at people in "Open Plan" offices today nothing much seems to have changed -- still smallish (and single) monitors with max 1080p resolution. I wouldn't even THINK of doing any I.T gig with less than 2 monitors and decently large ones at that and at least one of those having 4K UHD resolution.

If you are out in the field with a "Stand alone" laptop - then a "rugged" build might be more important than the fastest CPU etc. If you are on an Oil rig, a Volcano monitoring station, or a repair part of geothermal energy station for example would be a case for such a type of laptop.

There's no single definition of a "Business Computer". The question probably has more answers than the classical "How long is a piece of string" one.

Cheers
jimbo

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The business desktop in this thread is one of those 'boring officy type' stuff, see OP. And yes, this thread did produce the desired multiplicity of answers, see post #42.

BTW, the last couple of pages also show that there is a multiplicity of ways to plug in a headphone I am so proud of myself that I was able to plug in mine

Would this be the one for me then?