Gateway FPD2485W

[QueBert]

was thinking about getting an FPD2485W, I noticed there is a $70'ish speaker add on. I'm not expecting stellar quality, but if anyone has them, or has heard them. What kind of sound do they produce?? might end up hooking a HD DVD or Xbox360 to the monitor and would like to have semi decent sound.

thanks

 

[chizow]

A few people tried them out over in HOCP's display thread and said they're decent. They're also a bit cheaper if you get them online, $50 at HSN I think. Probably similar to a pair of $50-80 PC speakers. They do add the nice functionality of a remote and no desktop footprint being integrated into the 2485W itself.

Depending on what you're planning to use your 2485W for, you might want to look at a dedicated A/V set-up. The Gateway TDX sound bar is tied to your PC, so you won't be able to playback audio from external sources unless you run everything through your soundcard. Most cards nowadays are cutting back on the number of inputs on the back of the card, but something like Creative's face plate would allow you to do this. Still, everything will be in 2.0 stereo and most HD sources nowadays are capable of 5.1-8.1 DD/DTS/THX.

 

[QueBert]

I did not know about the sound card thing, that kills it for me. I was thinking about hooking an Xbox360 to it, and thought I could use the speaker add-on as a standalone thing. I guess I could just run the Xbox thru my sound card and use my 5.1 PC speakers.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: QueBert
I did not know about the sound card thing, that kills it for me. I was thinking about hooking an Xbox360 to it, and thought I could use the speaker add-on as a standalone thing. I guess I could just run the Xbox thru my sound card and use my 5.1 PC speakers.

Oh ya, you could still hook up your Xbox directly to the TDX sound bar if you have a separate set of speakers for your PC but it'd still be 2.0 Pro Logic or whatever. I thought you were planning to also use it as your PC speaker set-up. Still, with Xbox360 you'd probably want to go with a better sound solution similar to your 5.1 PC speaker set-up.

If its one of those PC speaker systems that has onboard DD decoding you should be able to run coax from your XBox360 to your sound card coax input and then run the sp/dif miniplug output to your 5.1 system where its decoded. Just need to make sure you set your sound card software to sp/dif passthrough when switching from PC to Xbox360 output. If the 360 doesn't have digital coax output, it might not be do-able unless you have a MB or Add-in card that accepts an optical connection.