Help with music synced LED's and sound splitting.

tl;dr, music synced LEDs run off dual splitter with 5.1 logitech speakers, reducing quality in sound

Hey everyone, I'm new to the site and hope to get a lot out of it.
I followed some instrucatables on how to make LEDs that are synced to music. Everything works as planned and its extremely cool. However, I use it with 5.1 logitech speakers with a 3.5mm headphone splitter on my laptop with one audio jack going to the breadboard that has the LED circuit on it and the other jack goes to the speakers. The sound quality gets reduced a bit. It isn't THAT bad, but the moment I take out the jack for the LEDs, the quality improves. (The left and right rear stop working, yet they are never usually loud in the first place, but I do notice a reduction in quality with the front speakers.)

I tested it with playing a song, running the speakers, and instead of having the LEDs plugged in, I plugged in some normal ear buds. This also reduced the quality. So I'm guessing it has something to do with the splitter? Any advice on how to improve this?

thanks!

Can you show us the circuit you used for the LEDs

https://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/33/001cpg.jpg/
Tell me if you need a better pic.

The transistor is a tip31
the wires on the very left that are connected to the base are the red and white cables from the audio jack and are soldered together. Red jumper at the collector is connected to the black alligator clip which is soldered to the 4 uv leds. Wire at the emitter is the ground cable from the audio jack and is connected to ground. the red jumper is the positive terminals for the leds. Just wanted to clarify that.

You're loading your speaker output with a low impedance. Use a different output or add a preamplifier to your LED circuit.

I replied with some stuff and the pic but it has to be approved first from the moderator.

OK how about a link?

https://www.instructables.com/id/Ultimate-guide-to-LEDs/step17/Sound-to-light-step-3-assembly/

this is the instructables that I used. I followed it exactly except I used a tip31 transistor and 4 uv leds instead of just 1 white led.

(sorry for multiple posts I'm mixing my self up)

Here is the pic of my breadboard

https://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/718/001ydkp.jpg/

Try running the audio thru a cap to the base of the trany.

Sorry this is where my knowledge of electronics ends. I don't know how big of a cap to use.

You copied the Sound To Light Instructable that was designed by a little 13 years old kid who knows NOTHING about electronics (he copied another instructable designed by another little kid).
It has no series base resistor so it RECTIFIES and SHORTS your music source (you are lucky that it is not damaged). No wonder it reduces the sound quality.
It has no current-limiting resistor for the LED so you are lucky that the LED did not burn out.

But when I plug in headphones instead of the audio in for the leds, I still get the reduction in quality.

The Sound to Light circuit is SHORTING the audio so of course the sound quality is bad.
The splitter is simply SHORTING its input and 2 outputs together which overloads the music source.
You need a properly designed Sound to Light circuit that does not short the audio. You also need a headphones driver circuit.
Maybe the SHORTING has destroyed your music source.

It hasn't destroyed it, when I only have the speakers connected the normal quality is back. I guess this is really unavoidable with a cheap instructables design lol. Thanks for the help anyway.

I guess this is really unavoidable with a cheap instructables design lol.

Click to expand...

Thats the bottom line.
Thare are much better Circuits out there if you spend some time on google you will find them.