Speakers

TKE899

Member
Apr 24, 2008
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What is your definition of cheap? If you give a price range I guarantee people on this forum will be able to give you ideas.
 

YOyoYOhowsDAjello

Moderator<br>A/V & Home Theater<br>Elite member
Aug 6, 2001
31,205
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z-5500s have been on sale for $150 in the past if you're willing to wait and you're lucky enough that another sale happens.

You might be able to find a decent HTIB set on craigslist for that much as well.
 
Dec 26, 2007
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Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
z-5500s have been on sale for $150 in the past if you're willing to wait and you're lucky enough that another sale happens.

You might be able to find a decent HTIB set on craigslist for that much as well.

This.

Maybe check out www.audiogon.com as well.

You won't be able to find great speakers at this price, but they would work until you got better (assuming you want to).
 

Ruger22C

Golden Member
Sep 22, 2006
1,080
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"$40 for 2.1...I guarantee you that your TV speakers are better."

Something is better than nothing.
I'm using a Monitor with HDMI. No speakers built-in.
 

shortylickens

No Lifer
Jul 15, 2003
80,287
17,082
136
The Labtec Spin 70's are actually quite nice considering how cheap they are.
They're just stereo, no subwoofer. I gave my mom a Labtec 2.1 system several years ago. I forget the model number but they arent any of the new sets currently available.

For 150 bucks you can find the Logitech Z-5300's which are damn nice surround speakers. They dont have a digital jack though.

Actually, I think unless you get a home theater setup or wait for a sale on the Z-5500's you wont find anything good with a digital connection in that price range.
 

Rio Rebel

Administrator Emeritus<br>Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
5,194
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Sorry for my terse response. I'm not sure what you're looking for in terms of digital to analog conversion, and I'm not particularly familiar with "computer" speakers, so I'll leave that to someone else.

I would strongly suggest you drop the idea of a subwoofer for now. You definitely want one, but you can't get a decent sub by itself for under $100, which means you're not even in the game to go 2.1 or 5.1.

I would look at getting the best pair of speakers you can afford. In your price range, you should be able to get a pair of pretty good used speakers. Depending on what you will use to power them, that would be next. If you have a decent receiver, then your next step would be the sub. Once you get a decent 2.1 system going, you could look at adding cheap surrounds for the time being, and eventually a center channel (that preferably matches the front pair).

You don't have to follow that approach, but I can assure you that you won't find any 2.1 setup under $50 that even approaches "barely acceptable" sound quality.

Good luck!
 

Ruger22C

Golden Member
Sep 22, 2006
1,080
4
81
Luckily, my monitor seems to split the audio off of the HDMI into a single stereo jack.

:D

I'll know for sure when my HDMI 1.3 cable arrives in about 2 weeks.
 

YOyoYOhowsDAjello

Moderator<br>A/V & Home Theater<br>Elite member
Aug 6, 2001
31,205
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What kind of monitor is it?

btw, your first rig link is broken (the desktop one)
 

Ruger22C

Golden Member
Sep 22, 2006
1,080
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my desktop is:

E8400, G92, 4gB DDR2 800, GA-P35-DS3L, 500gB / 32mB, Ageia PhysX PPU, ATI HDTV Wonder, X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty, Vista Home Premium & XP MCE.
 

YOyoYOhowsDAjello

Moderator<br>A/V & Home Theater<br>Elite member
Aug 6, 2001
31,205
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Well I was hoping to look up the model number for your monitor to try to figure out if it did indeed take digital audio off the HDMI input and give you analog output.
 

YOyoYOhowsDAjello

Moderator<br>A/V & Home Theater<br>Elite member
Aug 6, 2001
31,205
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Looks like you should be good to go on getting audio of the HDMI. I'm not sure what types of audio formats it supports though HDMI though.
 

Ruger22C

Golden Member
Sep 22, 2006
1,080
4
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It would have to be 2-channel.. it's a regular 3.5 jack??

I have a 2.1 speaker from PC that should work fine :)

Fixed my desktop sigline, by the way.
 

YOyoYOhowsDAjello

Moderator<br>A/V & Home Theater<br>Elite member
Aug 6, 2001
31,205
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I meant I don't know if you have to set your source devices to do 2 channel PCM or if it will accept multichannel digital formats and then downmix it to stereo.

The link is still broken. The link has to say "rigid" instead of "id" or we don't get to the right spot even though you do.