Sound As A Pound ££££

[Haptic]

Hiya Guys,

 

Looking for some advice regarding audio on my home pc system,

 

currently using onboard 5.1 sound a set of logitech Z4 2.1 speakers,

 

I'm looking to spend a few quid on upgrading the sound card and speakers to some quality ones and thought the best place to ask would be with you guys,

 

Any suggestions would be gratefully appreciated!

[PeterW]

What do you use it for, games?

[Haptic]

What do you use it for, games?

 

eveything bud games music the lot

[SYNACK]

In my opinion the best sound output is attained by keeping the signal digital as long as possible. Get yourself a card with a fibre TOSLINK output and some speakers or a home theater system with a fibre input (can also use SP-DIF). This way there is no interfearance from the computers electronics and the sound is decoded and output by the quality speaker system itself.

 

Is your computer Vista or XP as this also makes a difference, the driver model in Vista make alot of the older high end cards features useless as it tries to keep everything digital. I am still not sure whether Creative have fixed their drivers to work any better than a standard card yet.

 

These are out of stock but have the right kind of connectors: [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Klipsch-ProMedia-GMX-D-5-1-Digital/dp/B00008UA3C]Amazon.com: Klipsch ProMedia GMX D-5.1 Digital Speaker System: Electronics[/ame]

 

There is a list of sound cards here:

TOSLINK, PCI Express x1, Sound Cards - CNET Reviews

 

This one looks good to:

http://www.trust.com/products/product_detail.aspx?item=15377

 

Admittedly Creative ones but they must have fixed their cards up for Vista by now.

 

By offloading the actual audio processing to an external device you don't have to worry about it using up any extra system resources. All speaker balancing and tuneing can be handled by a dedicated audio system rather than trying to do it all internally you don't have to deal with interfearence from the other stuff inside the PC.

 

Unfortunatly I am not fully up to date with the latest cards as it has been a while since I speced a machine for really high quality sound. Re=reading I may have gone overboard with my recomendations just a tad if its not meant for a home HiFi setup

Edited March 7, 2009 by SYNACK

[Haptic]

In my opinion the best sound output is attained by keeping the signal digital as long as possible. Get yourself a card with a fibre TOSLINK output and some speakers or a home theater system with a fibre input (can also use SP-DIF). This way there is no interfearance from the computers electronics and the sound is decoded and output by the quality speaker system itself.

 

Is your computer Vista or XP as this also makes a difference, the driver model in Vista make alot of the older high end cards features useless as it tries to keep everything digital. I am still not sure whether Creative have fixed their drivers to work any better than a standard card yet.

 

These are out of stock but have the right kind of connectors: Amazon.com: Klipsch ProMedia GMX D-5.1 Digital Speaker System: Electronics

 

There is a list of sound cards here:

TOSLINK, PCI Express x1, Sound Cards - CNET Reviews

 

This one looks good to:

Trust - 7.1 Surround Sound Card SC-7600

 

Admittedly Creative ones but they must have fixed their cards up for Vista by now.

 

By offloading the actual audio processing to an external device you don't have to worry about it using up any extra system resources. All speaker balancing and tuneing can be handled by a dedicated audio system rather than trying to do it all internally you don't have to deal with interfearence from the other stuff inside the PC.

 

Unfortunatly I am not fully up to date with the latest cards as it has been a while since I speced a machine for really high quality sound. Re=reading I may have gone overboard with my recomendations just a tad if its not meant for a home HiFi setup

 

 

Many thanks for your "Sound" advice lol couldnt help myself , I'm running Vista 64 Ultimate at the moment so mabye digital and external are they way to go I am very heavily into my music and anything that doesnt strain other components is a blessing so I'm thinking external amp and proper speakers not pc build speakers like the ones in this link below

 

KEF IQ5SE-WALNUT at Richer Sounds - HI-FI Separates, Home Cinema, Speakers, MP3 DVD Portables, Plasma LCD, etc.

 

[john]

I'm a creative X-Fi fan myself, have one here thats gotta be about 3 years old now and its great still Connected it via my Yamaha amp and Eltax speakers and it sounds lovely

[Brpilot99]

Hi Simon .... I'm the same with my music and have the following to add

 

Its always been a golden rule to spend the lions share of you cash on the speakers !!! As cheap speakers can sound horrible !! Regarding the amp ... make sure its got enough power to drive your speaker choice .... The better the speaker generally the less efficient it is and will need an amp of greater power to drive it at a reasonable level ....

 

Take a look on ebay ... theres lots of choice there ....

 

I've recently bought a pair of Rogers LS3/5A BBC monitors .. cost £350.00 as a matched pair . They can blow your socks off ... If you want serious bass then add a sub such as any of the REL series ...

Watch out for your windows though .. these subs are very capable of getting down to the 20 hertz range !!!!

 

Hope this helps .. if you need any more help contact me on my usual mobile number

 

Cheers

Brian Rumsey

Silicon Keyboards with lower case letters

[PeterW]

ASUS Xonar is worth a look,

ASUSTeK Computer Inc.

ASUSTeK Computer Inc.

If it is within your budget grab the D2 or D2X they have the better DACs on them.

Edited March 8, 2009 by PeterW

[mac_shinobi]

not to hijack the thread but got an apple mac with an optical cable ( if I got a reasonable surround sound amp that had an optical in ) would the amp be able to convert it into the surround sound channels ( assuming that the output was in a surround sound format in the first place ie a dvd that has dolby digital 5.1 audio or a surround sound audio format ( as I know there are a few how ever the difference between them means nothing to me :-S )

[SYNACK]

The signal will be output in whatever 5.1 or 7.1 encoding that the source is in. It is up to your amp to decode this into individual channels. If you have a 5.1 source going into the AMP so long as it can decode it it will output on all speakers. If it is a stereo sound then it is again up to the configuration of the AMP as to how it is treated (ie duplicated on front and rear leaft and right or just output to FR + FL)

 

Here is a good thread on it:

What sound card actually will output 5.1 via optical/coaxial

 

To get 5.1 output over optical from a stereo PCM source on your computer you need a card with Dolby Live which is an onboard encoder from PCM to DOLBY and / or DTS Connect which is the updated version.

Edited March 8, 2009 by SYNACK

[K.C.Leblanc]

Pop over the OcUK forums and have a look through the Sound City and the Home Thearte and Audio forums.

 

EDIT: If you register bare in mind you won't be permitted to mention CPLtd, it's against their rules.

[Haptic]

Pop over the OcUK forums and have a look through the Sound City and the Home Thearte and Audio forums.

 

EDIT: If you register bare in mind you won't be permitted to mention CPLtd, it's against their rules.

 

Already a personal member bud , many thanks though