speakers

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Hey everybody. I was looking to buy klipsch 2.1 promedia speakers but they're now out of my budget. I want to cut back on the price without cutting back much on preformance. Are there any speakers out there that provide good quality sound, bass without strainig the wallet? Thanks in advance for all those who reply.

[Panama Red]

Take a look at the Logitech speakers. Klipsch may be rated as the best but unless you have a "tuned ear" it's hard to justify the price difference. Take a look at these options.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Manufactory=1080&PropertyCodeValue=906%3A8149&PropertyCodeValue=0&description=&MinPrice=&MaxPrice=&SubCategory=60&Submit=Property

I know you can't buy from Newegg in Canada but this is an easy way to show you the Logitech 2.1 offerings.

[Hi Ho]

I wouldn't say you need a trained ear to tell the difference between Klipsch and Logitech. From what I have heard the Klipsch have tighter bass and clearer highs due to the better quality subwoofer and the seperate tweaters in the Klipsch system.

The Logitech certainly is a good system though and if your budget requires it one of the systems Panama Red linked to will work great. I'd say the Z-2300 would be closest to the Klipsch.

[Ryno186]

Have you considered using a home theatre system/stereo for your computer speakers. That's the planned setup on my system.....whenever I get it running.

[Ryno186]

I meant using an existing home theater audio system or stereo

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How would i hook those up? BTW i'll be buying the creative sound blaster audigy 2 zs.

[Hi Ho]

How would i hook those up?
You would probably want to use the analog outputs. You would need a receiver with a multi-channel input. You could hook it up via coax digital but you would not get surround sound except for DVD movies. Take at look at THIS (http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=113495) guide.

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okay i read that guide but im confused. Whats a coax cable, digital cable, optical and spdif? what do these look like? Id like to buy the audigy 2 zs and hookup a sony home theatre but is this the right sound card?

[Nav]

im confused about optical, coax, digital, etc. i like this set but would it work with a audigy 2 zs?

http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0665000FS10063489&catid=19701

[Hi Ho]

There are pictures of each connector HERE (http://community.webshots.com/photo/342397658/342407811iapuVL).

A coax cable is basically an RCA connnection. The difference is that you need a 75 OHM cable. Any old RCA cable won't cut it.

Optical (TosLink) uses a fiber optic cable and LED lights to transfer digital data. There is virtually no difference in sound quality between coax and optical.

S/PDIF is not an actual connection. It stands for Sony/Phillips Digital Interface. It is a standard for transfering audio digitally.

Do you have the Audigy card already? If not I would recommend a different one if you want to do it digitally.

The problem with the Creative cards, and most other sound cards, is that they do not output 5.1 sound over the digital connection when playing games. They will only output 5.1 when playing something like a DVD. The reason for this is that sound from a game needs to be encoded into Dolby Digital on the fly. There is only one soundcard that I know of that will do this. The Bluegeards HDA Digital X-Mystique (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829127001). It has a DolbyDigital Live chip which encodes everything into Dolby Digital on the fly. That is the only way you will get 5.1 sound over the digital connection.

I believe the onboard sound on some Nforce2 boards also had DDLive but the new ones do not. M-Audio was also making a DDLive card but I can no longer find it.

EDIT: Just noticed you were in Canada. I found one Canadian vendor selling the Bluegears card. HERE (http://www.anitec.ca/default.aspx?mode=product_detail&pid=4117) it is.

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Would you recommend a home theatre, the klipsch 2.1's or the logitech z 2300?

[Hi Ho]

It depends on what you want. If you want surround sound you could go with a home theater setup or multimedia speakers like the Logitech Z5300's. You would probably get better sound quality from a Logitech or Klipsch multimedia system than you would from a low end home theater in a box (HTiB). If you got a high end HTiB or a component system it would most definetly beat any PC system but at a much higher cost.

If you don't want surround sound either the Klipsch 2.1's or the Logitech Z2200's would work fine.

If you do go with a multimedia suround system you wouldn't need to worry about the sound card since PC speakers only have analog jacks.

[Nav]

i'll probably go for the klipsch because the home theatre solution seems too expensive. I might get that sound card you suggested just in case down the line i change my mind. thanks for all your help:)