i just picked up a cheap insignia surround sound receiver.i just want to hook up one speaker to go to my wife's side of the bed so she can hear and i can sleep.i'm just using charter cable with no box.there is no connection on the insigna for cable in.are these receivers only made to be used with cable or sat boxes? i tried going from the tv to the insignia but that didn't work. no hdmi conn either.i tried using computer speakers hoked up to the headphone output but the sound is bad.any ideas?

You don't give the details on the TV. Many modern TVs have an optical (TOSLINK) or analog outputs (red/white RCA plugs). If the TV has these, that is the way to hook it up.

The reason you would have problems with the headphone jack is that it is a low impedance output that is after the amplifier. The best solution if you need to use that output would be to connect a small efficient speaker directly to the headphone jack and forget the receiver.

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Living Room: Toshiba 56" 720P DLP, Onkyo 806, Klipsch KG5 mains and RC35 series center/surrounds, Velodyne 12" sub, Panasonic BD60 Blu-Ray, Toshiba A30 HD-DVD, Panasonic Laserdisc player, Motorola HD-DVR.
Bedroom: Panasonic 50" 1080P Plasma, Onkyo 605, Denon HTIB speakers, Toshiba A2 HD-DVD, Insignia BD1 Blu-Ray, Motorola HD-DVR
Misc: Optoma 720P projector and 60" screen. Basement full of surplus.

the tv is a phillips 20" hd .monitor or tv.there are 2 places for av cables in but nothing for out.no digital optical or hdmi .i tried computer speakers with there own power supply but they were cheap and so was the sound.the volume on the tv had to be turned up high to hear even though the small speaker had it's own volume adjustment.can i get a good speaker to work in the headphone output?

Why not wireless headphones? The transmitter will connect via the TV's headphone jack. Some are rechargeable with the transmitter also serving as the charging base. Your wife can listen in stereo as loud as she wants and you'll have almost complete silence. I have the set linked below that I got on sale at Best Buy for about $130. You can get acceptable ones for much less...

Sennheiser USA - Surround Sound Headphones, RS 130, Wireless, Stereo Sound - Private Audio..

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