Hi,
i have 2 Logitech z623's plugged into my PC with an Auxiliary Y-splitter and it works very well but these are 2.1 speakers and on one of the satellites there is a control that levels the sound and the bass and since i have x2 sets of speakers there are x2 controllers and i have an idea to get around having to control both manually and trying to balance sound, but i need to make sure it wont ruin the speakers.

My idea is to turn the volume all the way up on both the satellites and control the sound via the windows sound controller but i'm not sure if it's a good idea to have max power GOING to the speakers and having it quieten by windows (or if that's even how it works...) anyway i was wondering if i can get an opinion if this is a stupid or plausible idea

Thanks Modern PC Speakers have their own amplifiers.... however the biggest issue with using a Y adapter is that your dropping the load resistance to the preamp of the speakers to half of that of what the system is meant to run at. I wouldnt set the computers sound to the max because you will overdrive the preamp at 1/2 the rated resistance.

SAY your speakers have 100 ohms of preamp resistance each set. Connected to your system normally you will have 100ohms resistive load on the sound cards amplifier.

When you CONNECT a stereo Y adapter with 2 like model sets of speakers your 100 ohms from both of them combined parallel = 50 ohms. And less than 5 ohms is close to a dead short circuit where a short circuit is generally less than 1 ohm.

So by running both at the same time in a Y config, your adding a load to the sound cards amplifier. At 50% volume level you will probably be ok and then use the powered amplifiers of the speaker sets to ramp the volume higher.

The fact that you state this:

My idea is to turn the volume all the way up on both the satellites and control the sound via the windows sound controller but i'm not sure if it's a good idea to have max power going to the speakers

Your running a safer configuration in the fact that you might not need to even run the sound cards volume to even 50%.

External Speakers are fine at Max Volume, they are rated to run at that volume level. What would kill them is if you sent them a frequency like the speaker killing low frequency ghetto blaster bass tracks that the kids run around with in their $500 cars with $3000 audio systems that rattle everything within a tenth mile radius. Also you might jump out of your seat if the volume control accidentally get set to 100% and windows makes a noise for start up or shutdown or whatever reason. As well as if your speakers are set to the max and the plug comes loose and touches the case you can get a nice 60 Hz loud buzz.

I nearly JUMPED out of my skin when connecting my Roland guitar amp to my PC using the auxiliary input jack on it. My PC was set to max which wasnt that loud with cheap set of $12 logitech speakers. I thought I was playing it safe by having all Volume Controls set to 0 so that I could raise the volume level with the Roland Amp to where I wanted it. I nearly had a scene like the first opening scene with Back to the Future where Marty Blows himself backwards into the wall as seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP_Z3s8Zas0

Found out FAST that the Roland Amp volume controls were non functional for direct audio input and only used for the guitar levels, and it was a direct tap direct injection of audio to the Rolands Amplifier at MAX Volume.Thanks for the reply it helped me out heaps