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Another Silly Speaker Advice Thread

Spike

Spike

Diamond Member
I know I stated that I am a non-fanboy in the thread title, but that may not be entirely true. I am a big fan of Logitech speakers so I tend to gravitate towards them but I am not set on getting them by any means. I am no audiophile (as proven by my liking the logitech speakers) but I do like decent music and games for not so much money. Currently I have a set of Z-560's for my main machine and love them to death, they are perfect for gaming and listening to music in a small area and were a good price ($140 4 years ago).

I am currently looking for a decent 2.1 setup for a home theater PC. Here is the situation, my wife and I just bought a house and I am going to build a small HTPC for the living room, this will be mostly to play music and DVD's. Within the next 3 years I plan to invest in a good home theater component system but for the time being I want a cheap 2.1 or surround system. My price range is <$100.

The reason I say 2.1 is because I want decent speakers for that price. I know I can get the bottom of the barrel logitech 5.1 setup but I am willing to bet that does not sound so hot. I have looked at the 2300's but they are pretty pricey. Like I said before, I don't want to spend a ton because I do plan on getting a nice system in the next few years. Thanks!

Oh, BTW, these will be running off of the built in sound on the HTPC or a SB Live, whichever is better.

-spike
 
Originally posted by: us3rnotfound
2.1 - Swans M200 will definately be teh best
Click to expand...

ugh

Do you read?

The guy wants a 2.1 system. You suggested a 2.0 system. He also said below $100 and you give him something near $200 way to go.

 
Here are a few good value 2.1 systems.

Logitech Z-340In australia these retail for around AU$80, which means that you can probably get them for around US$60 if you know where to shop. (I got my set for $8-someone at the shop must have screwed up big time).

Logitech X-230~US$50
These seem to be good looking with decent performance.

Logitech Z-3e~US$80
A bit more expensive than the other two logitech's, but a bit more powerful. Also, comes in silver+black/white/woodgrain.

Otherwise, go to the link below to view all of Creative's 2.1 speaker systems.
Creative Speakers - 2.1
On the creative site, you'll probably want to look at the "Inspire G380" and "Inspire 2500". These are geared more toward desktop situations, but would still perform in a home thater situation.

Hope all thats helped.
RoD
 
On your budget, you might seriously consider these. They sound surprisingly good considering their unusual design (from an acoustics standpoint). I recently recommended them to an acquaintance who had a budget similar to yours for some new speakers, and he absolutely loves them. I think I found them for him for around $80ish a few months ago. They come in white, dark grey or black, and they have cool little green LEDs on the bottom of the satellites that glow downward. Looks kinda cool (but not glaring or obtrusive) in a darkened room. They also have these neat little touch-sensitive volume controls on the right satellite -- you just touch your finger on the little button (as opposed to having to press it) and the volume adjusts. The "industrial design" is really kinda clever & unique.

Apple's retail stores carry them, as does CompUSA (and many other dealers, I assume). Although those places won't be likely to have the best price.

As for the look, I'd guess most people either love 'em or hate 'em as they're pretty different looking. I'm in the former camp, but to each his own. Just thought I'd point 'em out to you if you weren't aware of them. IMHO, they'd be worth a trip to the store to listen to as you're making your decision.

Good luck. 🙂

Ken
 
Thanks for all the replies. I looked at those Logitech Z-3e's but the reviews were medicore at best, they all reccomended the Z-2300 for 2.1, but those are like $130. My wife has a set of the 340's which work great for her laptop but lack the clarity I am looking for in a HT system. Yes, I know true clarity cannot be found in computer speakers, much less under $100 but I am looking for the best I can get.

I am not sure about those JBL creature II's. I trust JBL but hate the whole apple/ipod look to them. I suppose I should be willing to forgive and forget if they are the best 2.1 for the money. I need to head into BB or Fry's to see if they have these out so I can do a little demo (not that a store is the best place to test but it would still work).

Thanks again for the advice. I am leaning towards the Creature II's or adding some $$ and getting either the Z-2300's or Klipsch promedia 2.1

-spike
 
You might want to look at the Creative I-trigues. They are meant to be pretty good although i ahve no experince with 2.1 they would probably be woth a look if they are the right price (i have no idea what they go for over in the US)
 
I am now leaning much more heavily to spending a little more and getting either the logitech Z-2300's or the Klipsch promedia 2.1. I have read seperate reviews of both and both get VERY high marks, even from places like cnet. The Logitechs run ~$20 cheaper but seem to have sound that is not *quite* as good. What I need to do is find a comparison review between the two to see if the sound difference is enough to make that $20 worth it.

Oh, and I made the decision to spend a little more because it will probably be 2 or more years before I actually buy a real home theater system. Right now we don't really ever watch TV and my 20.1" widecreen LCD on my comp is our main movie screen. downstairs these speakers would be pared with a 19" TV and my HTPC for mainly music with some DVD and gaming thrown in there. I plan to get a Dell 2405fpw to replace my 2005fpw and the 2005 would become the new tv for the time being.

-spike
 
Originally posted by: Ken90630
On your budget, you might seriously consider these. They sound surprisingly good considering their unusual design (from an acoustics standpoint). I recently recommended them to an acquaintance who had a budget similar to yours for some new speakers, and he absolutely loves them. I think I found them for him for around $80ish a few months ago. They come in white, dark grey or black, and they have cool little green LEDs on the bottom of the satellites that glow downward. Looks kinda cool (but not glaring or obtrusive) in a darkened room. They also have these neat little touch-sensitive volume controls on the right satellite -- you just touch your finger on the little button (as opposed to having to press it) and the volume adjusts. The "industrial design" is really kinda clever & unique.

Apple's retail stores carry them, as does CompUSA (and many other dealers, I assume). Although those places won't be likely to have the best price.

As for the look, I'd guess most people either love 'em or hate 'em as they're pretty different looking. I'm in the former camp, but to each his own. Just thought I'd point 'em out to you if you weren't aware of them. IMHO, they'd be worth a trip to the store to listen to as you're making your decision.

Good luck. 🙂

Ken
Click to expand...


They are alright, very clear sounding. Their problem is that even considering the price category, they can't give bass. If you love jazz then go for it. If you like rock, hip-hop, or games there are better options.
 
Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
I don't know if you'd be interested in this, but if you're planning on getting a real speaker set down the road, you might want to get a bookshelf speaker set so you could use them as surrounds in the future.

Example:
Infinity primus 150s
or
Infinity entras

plus a
Sonic t-amp
or something off ebay
to power them
Click to expand...

Hmm, those are very interesting, my only concern would be that I might want a different set of rears down the road so I would be replaceing these. Plus I doubt they would give the bass that a dedicated sub can do. Thanks for the suggestions though, I know where to go when I am looking for a real ht setup

-spike
 
Well, thanks for all the advice, I coughed up the money (not that I really have it but hey, you only live once) and bought the Klipsh 2.1 I am betting they will be a good setup for the time being and once I get a real HT I can always sell them or give them away.

One benefit of getting these is that I can finally sit down and do a side-by-side comparisson between these and my Z-560's in 2.1 mode.

Looks like I am going to have to dig up my old SB live card to use with this setup as I am betting it is better than the on-board sound.

-spike
 
I am not sure about those JBL creature II's. I trust JBL but hate the whole apple/ipod look to them. I suppose I should be willing to forgive and forget if they are the best 2.1 for the money.
Click to expand...
Yeah, as I said before, their design is pretty unique and people are likely to either love 'em or hate 'em. Don't feel bad or guilty about deciding against a product because of the way it looks -- aesthetics are a valid consideration. Ideally, I think most of us prefer products that perform well and look good to us too.

Well, thanks for all the advice, I coughed up the money (not that I really have it but hey, you only live once) and bought the Klipsch 2.1. I am betting they will be a good setup for the time being and once I get a real HT I can always sell them or give them away.
Click to expand...
Excellent choice! I was gonna recommend them at the outset, but they were beyond your stated budget. I own a pair of the ProMedia 2.1s myself and love 'em. I'm betting that you won't sell them or give them away. Ever. 😀

This system was a little overpriced, IMHO, when it first came out several years ago, but now that it can be had for around $120ish (got mine for that via a rebate deal), it's tough to beat.

If I can give you a tip: One thing you might wanna do is pay particular attention to aiming the satellites directly at the place you & your wife will do most of your listening. The off-axis frequency response of the ProMedias suffers a bit because the MicroTractix horns (for the high frequencies) are more directional than conventional tweeters. So, ideally you want them aiming right at you. If you walk way off to the side while they're playing (which most people won't do that often), you won't hear the highest frequencies as well.

The subwoofer, of course, can be placed just about anywhere because low bass frequencies are non-directional (which you prolly already knew). And I think you'll find that the crossover between the sub and satellites is outstanding with this system. It is smooth as silk. If you'd like a little more info on the system you just bought, here is a pretty good review. 🙂

Oh, one other thing: You might find that a Chaintech AV-710 sound card will give you far better sound than your SBLive. I know you've already gone over budget, but the AV-710 can typically be had for around $25 or $30. The DACs in the 710 are far better than those in the SBLive, which was designed more for gaming than music/dvd's. Since you mentioned having a HTPC setup, you might consider upgrading to the AV-710 if/when you can afford it.
 
Originally posted by: Ken90630

Oh, one other thing: You might find that a Chaintech AV-710 sound card will give you far better sound than your SBLive. I know you've already gone over budget, but the AV-710 can typically be had for around $25 or $30. The DACs in the 710 are far better than those in the SBLive, which was designed more for gaming than music/dvd's. Since you mentioned having a HTPC setup, you might consider upgrading to the AV-710 if/when you can afford it.
Click to expand...

Make sure you set it to high quality mode and use the wolfsen (sp?) DAC in the 7/8 output jack and you'll get very nice 2.1 from it.

Congratulations on the Klipsch purchase. Enjoy 😀

 
Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
I don't know if you'd be interested in this, but if you're planning on getting a real speaker set down the road, you might want to get a bookshelf speaker set so you could use them as surrounds in the future.

Example:
Infinity primus 150s
or
Infinity entras

plus a
Sonic t-amp
or something off ebay
to power them
Click to expand...

Does the quality of the amplifier affect the quality of the overall sound much? Or is the big issue the quality of the digital to analogue converters in the sound card? what about digital speakers like the logitech 5500 (?) - which I assume has DACs in its input box?

 
Originally posted by: aidanjm
Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
I don't know if you'd be interested in this, but if you're planning on getting a real speaker set down the road, you might want to get a bookshelf speaker set so you could use them as surrounds in the future.

Example:
Infinity primus 150s
or
Infinity entras

plus a
Sonic t-amp
or something off ebay
to power them
Click to expand...

Does the quality of the amplifier affect the quality of the overall sound much? Or is the big issue the quality of the digital to analogue converters in the sound card? what about digital speakers like the logitech 5500 (?) - which I assume has DACs in its input box?
Click to expand...

That t-amp is an amazing one for the price just to let you know. It sounds like it compares with one costing hundreds or thousands of dollars according to some things I've read. It has a couple weaknesses though:
#1 It's battery powered unless you get an adapter (partsexpress has a link to one that would work)
#2 It doesn't put off a ton of wattage, so if you hook up some inefficient speakers, you might not get very good volume levels out of it
Some opinions
Little review with some NSFW ads

Ok, I know that's not really what you were asking, but I thought I'd post some more info on that one. I haven't heard one, but from everything I've read, It's an amazing deal.

I'm not really an expert on the inner workings of signal transfers (I only started researching HT stuff a little over a year ago), so I'm not going to be able to tell you if the DACs or amp quality is more of an issue.

I know that unless you have really crappy integrated audio, the speakers are the "bottleneck" in performance. I cringe when I see rig specs with a motherboard with nice onboard sound but the guy is planning on spending $70 on an Audigy2 zs and is planning on hooking them up to a set of x-530s. I try to steer them towards something like a z-5300e set and using the integrated audio... or if they've heard that an audigy is going to speed up their performance in games, suggest spending the money elsewhere in the system like a videocard that's nicer and will more than make up for the difference in performance lost to using integrated audio.

I guess my point above was that you have to have some pretty nice speakers before you should start worrying about the output quality of your sound (again, unless there's something like a crackling sound from your integrated audio etc.)

I'm not an expert on DACs either, but I know that the Chaintech AV-710 (my current card) has one very nice one and three rather mediocre one. It's a great budget card for anybody that's only going to use one output like in a 2.0 or 2.1 speaker system or if they're going to use headphones. The other place it shines is in digital mode where it does a great job passing through the digital signals to a receiver that can then use its own DACs to get a signal to your speakers.

In the case of the Logitech z-5500s, it does have DACs in the control pod thing. You can bypass them by using the analog inputs to the pod (which is what I recommend for anybody that has a nice soundcard like an audigy2 since I'm almost positive the DACs in just about every decent soundcard are going to be just as good or better than the ones in the pod logitech is including in the speaker package). If you have integrated audio with digital out though, it would probably be best to send a signal out digitally to the control pod and have it handle the conversions. I've never owned the z-5500s, but from what I understand, what I've said should be good advice in most cases. In the case of DVD movies that have an AC-3 track, I'm not sure which would be better. If you have a soundcard that can decode DD and DTS, I still think it would be the better choice vs. the control pod. In the case of gaming, analog is clearly the best choice. Unless you have soundstorm or the HDA X-Mystique, you're not going to get true surround sound in games.

I don't know if I answered your questions or not...
 
Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
Originally posted by: Ken90630

Oh, one other thing: You might find that a Chaintech AV-710 sound card will give you far better sound than your SBLive. I know you've already gone over budget, but the AV-710 can typically be had for around $25 or $30. The DACs in the 710 are far better than those in the SBLive, which was designed more for gaming than music/dvd's. Since you mentioned having a HTPC setup, you might consider upgrading to the AV-710 if/when you can afford it.
Click to expand...

Make sure you set it to high quality mode and use the wolfsen (sp?) DAC in the 7/8 output jack and you'll get very nice 2.1 from it.
Click to expand...

What he said. :thumbsup:

 
I am not sure what you are talking about with the AV 710. I do plan to buy one just not in the next few weeks due to financing. I will pm you when I get it and ask about setting up the card.

-spike
 
Originally posted by: Spike
I am not sure what you are talking about with the AV 710. I do plan to buy one just not in the next few weeks due to financing. I will pm you when I get it and ask about setting up the card.

-spike
Click to expand...

It's really easy to do. Get the latest drivers from via and there's a High sample rate 2 channel option. Plug your speakers into the 7/8 jack instead of the l/r jack and you'll be set.
 
Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
Originally posted by: Spike
I am not sure what you are talking about with the AV 710. I do plan to buy one just not in the next few weeks due to financing. I will pm you when I get it and ask about setting up the card.

-spike
Click to expand...

It's really easy to do. Get the latest drivers from via and there's a High sample rate 2 channel option. Plug your speakers into the 7/8 jack instead of the l/r jack and you'll be set.
Click to expand...

That sounds pretty simple. Darn you all, I only wanted to spend like $80 and now I have a $130 speaker set and a $25 sound card I want to buy (along with the Audigy 2 for my gaming PC). At least there was free shipping with the speakers...

-spike
 
Originally posted by: Spike
Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
Originally posted by: Spike
I am not sure what you are talking about with the AV 710. I do plan to buy one just not in the next few weeks due to financing. I will pm you when I get it and ask about setting up the card.

-spike
Click to expand...

It's really easy to do. Get the latest drivers from via and there's a High sample rate 2 channel option. Plug your speakers into the 7/8 jack instead of the l/r jack and you'll be set.
Click to expand...

That sounds pretty simple. Darn you all, I only wanted to spend like $80 and now I have a $130 speaker set and a $25 sound card I want to buy (along with the Audigy 2 for my gaming PC). At least there was free shipping with the speakers...

-spike
Click to expand...

Sorry :evil:

So you're planning on putting an Audigy2 and the Chaintech card in the same computer or do I have something mixed up?

For the cost, if it makes you feel any better, I was very happy with my $140 Logitech z-560s about 14 months ago... and then I got drawn into the HT market with the appeal of the affordable Fluance speaker systems. Since then I've bought an SX-HTB set at $300 shipped, a pair of SV-6's at about $150 shipped, a dayton tiny mighty 10" at $125 shipped, an HK AVR-325 at $360 shipped. Then I upgraded my sub for the $450 SVS PB-10. I've also added bass shakers at a cost of about $100.

Now I'm looking into spending about $1300 to $1500 on a new 5.0 or front 3 speaker set. :Q

Make sure you don't head over to AVSforum or hometheaterforum if you don't want this Klipsch set to be the first step in a neverending journey for a nice sound system 😛
 
Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
Originally posted by: Spike
Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
Originally posted by: Spike
I am not sure what you are talking about with the AV 710. I do plan to buy one just not in the next few weeks due to financing. I will pm you when I get it and ask about setting up the card.

-spike
Click to expand...

It's really easy to do. Get the latest drivers from via and there's a High sample rate 2 channel option. Plug your speakers into the 7/8 jack instead of the l/r jack and you'll be set.
Click to expand...

That sounds pretty simple. Darn you all, I only wanted to spend like $80 and now I have a $130 speaker set and a $25 sound card I want to buy (along with the Audigy 2 for my gaming PC). At least there was free shipping with the speakers...

-spike
Click to expand...

Sorry :evil:

So you're planning on putting an Audigy2 and the Chaintech card in the same computer or do I have something mixed up?

For the cost, if it makes you feel any better, I was very happy with my $140 Logitech z-560s about 14 months ago... and then I got drawn into the HT market with the appeal of the affordable Fluance speaker systems. Since then I've bought an SX-HTB set at $300 shipped, a pair of SV-6's at about $150 shipped, a dayton tiny mighty 10" at $125 shipped, an HK AVR-325 at $360 shipped. Then I upgraded my sub for the $450 SVS PB-10. I've also added bass shakers at a cost of about $100.

Now I'm looking into spending about $1300 to $1500 on a new 5.0 or front 3 speaker set. :Q

Make sure you don't head over to AVSforum or hometheaterforum if you don't want this Klipsch set to be the first step in a neverending journey for a nice sound system 😛
Click to expand...

The audigy 2 would go into my main gaming machine that is currently using on-board soundstorm audio running a set of Z-560's. The chaintech would go into the HTPC that these Klipsch speakers would be hooked to.

As for my home theater I don't have to worry about spending a bunch now as we just bought a house so we are pretty broke. I do, however, plan on setting aside ~$3k in the next few years to get a Plasma/LCD/HDTV + sound setup but that is going to be a while.

I am looking forward to getting my HTPC setup and then doing some comparisons between these new klipsch speakers and my older Z-560's setup in 2.1 mode. It will be interesting as the Klipsch where the main competition when I bought the 560's 4 years ago (if you can call $144 4.1 z-560's and the $300 Klipsch 4.1's in the same league).

-spike
 
Enjoy your new house :thumbsup:

I bought my z-560s about 3 or 4 years ago and sold them last year for $100. Probably the best $40 I ever spent.

I almost tend to look at my purchases as "renting" them for the duration that I keep them. $40 for over 2 years of use for the z-560s is quite a steal 🙂
 
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