I want to get surround sound for my computer. I need to upgrade my sound card and get a set of speakers.

Anyone have any recommendations or anything to stay away from?

Also how important is a graphics card? I want to watch some dvd's and play a few games with this computer, but I'm not a hardcore gamer or anything.

thanks.

 

well...bought this ish

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...Fencoding=UTF8


http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...Fencoding=UTF8


http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...onics&n=507846

 

I have a Klipsch Pro Media 5.1 system and they are by far the best computer speakers I've ever owned. I'm running a soundblaster audigy 2 sound card.

 

Klipsch site

 

The soundblaster audigy 2 card won't allow for digital optical out to a stereo receiver...or else I would have gone with that. I want to be able to run my computer sound to my home stereo.

And those klipsch speakers look incredible...but also pretty damn expensive. I almost bought those but convinced myself to save some money and get a cheaper set at the last minute.

You think I should spend the extra $$ for the Klipsch?

 

is there any reason to buy a sound card and computer speakers instead of just running everything through my home system? if I just get a digital optical output on my sound card and run that into my jvc receiver/amp with my existing surround sound, will that be just as good/better than pc speakers?

 

the audigy 2 does have optical out. You have to use a bay in the front of your computer, but it has optical in/out, spdif in/out, midi in/out, 1/4 in, rca's...

And if you're just going to run optical to your home stereo, you wouldn't even need to buy computer speakers...unless there are things you want to hear on your comp without eveyone else hearing (porn), or you don't want to have your home stereo on all the time...

Here's a pic

 

It has the optical out, but it is propietary. The format that the card uses to send the information cannot be recognized by a home stereo receiver.

At least thats what the first review on Amazon says...

"You can NOT hook this card up digitally to a receiver. I LOVE this card, but I feel this is important for customers to understand this fact, and very deceiving from Creative. The digital output on the card uses a proprietary digital signal. For the techs out there, a normal (electrical not optical) digital signal is a sine wave. The crest of the wave registers as "on" and the bottom of the wave registers as "off". The creative digital-out uses 8 points on the sine wave to create the signal. 1 point for each audio channel. This will only work with computer speaker sets designed for this type of proprietary signal. It will not work with home theatre receivers because it is not a standard digital signal. "

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...onics&n=284823





Have you ever tried it?



I just bought a turtle beach riviera card instead...it has optical outs for a stereo and thats all I really need.

 

well damn the man....I had no idea. I've never had to use the optical out on the card.

Anywho bro, as far as speakers go, look at the klipsch 2.1 systems on ebay. They are reasonalbe, and they sound good. Clear, powerfull..etc. Now that I think about it a little. I"d probably have a dedicated set even if I had it hooked up to my home stereo. What is your setup like? Do you want the optical outs to run DVD's on your comp and use your tv as a monitor...etc? Otherwise, there are lots of wireless ways to get 2 channels of music to your recieve from your comp to be decoded. That is also an option.