Racing cab sound - subwoofer

[wichitakid71]

I have a Rush the Rock that came with a complete set of speakers, but the boards including the sound board were long gone.  I've got the 5 speakers (2 front, 2 rear, 1 sub in the seat) wired to 3.5 mm jacks and connected to the Soundblaster card in my PC.  I can get sound out of the 4 speakers but not the sub.  The sub's alive, as I can play sound through it when I plug it into a player with the 3.5 mm plug.  The sound is there but faint.

This led me to believe that what I must need is an amp for the subwoofer (sorry if this is obvious, but I'm not much of an audiophile).  I've used a little 2-channel amp in my other arcade cabinet - is that all I'll need in the racing cab, just wired to the sub?  I assume it will need to be a mono amp.

Anyway, if there are other routes you've used to get sound from all your speakers, I'd appreciate all comments or advice.  Thanks in advance for the help.

Scott

[lilshawn]

typically the only amplified outputs capable of driving a speaker are the regular speaker outputs the other outputs are line level and need to be amplified separately. take note that the orange subwoofer output is MONO and shares the other channel with the CENTER output. so be sure to wire up the correct "side" to your sub amp if you are using regular old L and R RCAs to 3.5mm jack cable.

[wichitakid71]

Thank you, I have a mono plug for the sub output so I’m using it.  I’ll plan to run it through a little 2.1 amp to boost the signal.

[buttersoft]

Is a mono plug suitable though? The only one's i've seen would just bridge the two outputs (which is never a good idea).