One kicking sound system. Audiophiles please give your opinion

[Cydrono]

What's the best bang for the buck sound system that one can get for the PC? Considering my room is about 7 by 7 meters?

Should I just stick with a SoundBalster Live?? It's tired, tested and true...
but then there is the Santa Cruz, which I hear is better.

Then again there is the GameTheater XP. However from what I hear it excels in games, but I want something more general purpose like watching DVDs and listing to music.

Philips's Acoustic Edge I hear is pretty damn good, but we don't get those in Canada.

How about speakers? is there anything better than a Klipsch Promedia 4.1 set for about the same price?

Thanks in advance

 

[elchen]

hmmmmm...lemme see. there are the midiland 8200 w/ 5.1 decoder and stuff..it's basically a 5.1 system for your comp. it's about the same price as klipsch. check out reviews at http://firingsquad.gamers.com/hardware/ and i think anandtech has a review on it too.

as for sound card. all three that u mentioned are quite good. the hercules, the SC, the AE (acoustic edge)

 

[nortexoid]

actually, u can get the midiland 7100 plus (w/ decoder, remote, etc.) 5.1 digital system onsale at their site for $199...

for that price, it's the best bang for your buck for an excellent sounding/powered 5.1 digital system.

for sound card - u could use an sblive w/ coaxial digital out if u already have it...if u have to purcahse another card, the santa cruz is better...(or hercules GTXP if u want the break-out box)...u'll have to purchase a few dollar stereo mini jack to coax. adapter for the versajack from, say, radioshack.

 

[Noriaki]

If you are using Digital output the sound card doesn't matter that much.

The only major problem with the SBLive! is that the DACs on it are crap. It's got kind of a short feature list for one a modern sound card, but it's still decent (I use one), but the DACs are kind of bad...

 

[Cydrono]

Hmmm... here is a dillema;

Should I go with the Klipsch 4.1, which are the most powerful speakers on the market in that price range, or a set of 5.1 speakers for max surround sound experience...

One good thing is that if I go with the Santa Cruz I won't need a decoder which itself costs quite a bit.

 

[sharkeeper]

<< If you are using Digital output the sound card doesn't matter that much. >>



<Game Show Buzzer Sound> BZZZZZT! Wrong!

I switched from a SB Live! to a GTXP and couldn't be happier. Using the SPDIF interface. Day and Night difference.

Cheers!

 

[Noriaki]

Really?

Just for straight 2D sound or AC-3 passthrough the GTXP made a difference?

Are you sure you're not just imagining things? Bits and bits...the sound card shouldn't matter....though with Creative anything is possible (I don't mean that in a good way).



The ProMedias are overrated....they have lots of raw power but that doesn't neccessarily translate into good sound quality. For certain things the ProMedias are very good but for other things they aren't.

DVDs are a definate weakpoint of the ProMedias.

 

[sharkeeper]

Listening to straight 48kHz carrier over coaxial cable. Fade to zero test got VERY grainy and nonlinear at -65 dB! That's attrocious.

The GTXP is much better, right up there with the optical output from a decent CD player such as a Denon 1520.

I'm not even going to address the random spikes, glitches, and pops that I would hear when watching a movie or recording direct sound sources! It seemed to be far worse when ACPI was disabled under Windows 2000 but the ACPI controller was still enabled in BIOS.

I use the Live! in another machine strictly for midi. I have 3GB of sound fonts that I started building since late 1994. It's ashame that the card can't record and playback worth a damn. I ditched a KK266R because of it as well. Lockup city with that thing. Worked fine in the A7V133 and KT7A RAID boards. (with the exception of the glitches) It's not a VIA issue either, I still hear the glitches in the system it's in now, and that's a BX based P3BF. NOTHING in that system is O/C. The Creative cards are NOT audiophile cards, PERIOD. I'm using about $20k worth of DAC and signal processing equipment so if the signal is full of crap, I'm gonna hear it.

Cheers!

 

[Noriaki]

Wow that's really sad....I thought bits would be bits...

maybe I should look into that AW744Pro? (Yamaha based card with optical output)

 

[Jaimin]

Isn't there a klipsch 5.1 system out now?