Worthwhile to upgrade from old Klipsch 2.1 speakers?

[Stumben2]

Got my old Klipsch 2.1 still. They put out nice sound. But its not 5.1 surround sound and for that matter I could never get my rear channels to sound right. THat may be in part due to my old sound card ( old SB live ). Other annoyance with the 2.1 they didnt come with long enough wires... replaced with my own but annoying.

I am getting a nice new rig, with XFI-Platnium soundcard, so I am just browsing what is available.

I am surprised at the overall lack of choices. Logitech z5500 5.1 get great reviews, fairly cheap.

Then there is the new 7.1 audio. Creative labs seems to be the only ones offering 7.1. But aside from the price... that may just be too many speakers for my office...

What do you guys recommend? Or just save money and stay put for now? Or Just get some nice headphones?

 

[alcoholbob]

There are plenty of options, just not that many in the Z-5500s price range. If you expand your budget by $100 or so, you do get better choices.

Creative Labs is far from being the only company offering 7.1. M-Audio, Chaintech, Blue gears, Turtle Beach, Gainward, Audiotack, Hercules, Mad Dog Media, TerraTec, SIIG Soundwave are only some of the available 7.1 options available. 7.1 isn't that new, and there is no lack of options.

As for recommendations, two things need to be clear before any can be made. 1) what's your budget? 2) how do the sound quality of your Klipschs seem to you. Do you want better? Or worse (the Logitechs)?--trade off for surround. Your priorities need to be clear before we make any recommendations. Otherwise, like the 7.1 cards I listed, we would just post 100 pages of options, which would result you in never reading it and just buying what you were planning to do to begin win--and thus us responding would be an exercise in futility.

 

[Stumben2]

Sorry, its easy to make the mistake of not doing a little backround reading before asking here.

I didnt realize there were so many 7.1 options. Thats good to hear.

My budget can be expanded by a $100 thats not big a problem. Much more than that, not sure if I want to spend.

The Klipsch quality I always liked for music. Games is ok. would be nice if I could match the music quality and improve the game quality.

I am really not sure if I should go with a 5.1 or make the leap to 7.1

 

[Eureka]

7.1 doesn't really make a difference, since the 4 rear speakers are only using 2 channels at the moment anyway. Look into the Klipsch Promedia 5.1 or the Gigaworks S750, both with very good audio quality as well as good for gaming. The Z-5500 is better for a cheap all-in-one system, though.

Norm

 

[NucEm]

Once you get past the specs and hipe it comes down to what sounds good to you within your budget. The only set of computer speakers I've had fail were a set of Boston Accoustics (internal amp flamed). I've used Altec Lansing, Boston Accoustics, Creative, Sony, and Klipsch. (demo'd Logitech against Klipsch Promedia 5.1 and liked the sound from Klipsch)

I coupled a refurb' set of Klipsch Ultra's 5.1 (~$250.00) with the X-Fi Fatal1ty card. I like the setup and the sound. I tend to like Klipsch over most other speakers. But there are lots of other brands to check out. Folks can be very passionate about their sound systems.

One thing to consider is that the X-Fi series has quite good output to the headphones. It tries to simulate surround sound with the CMSS-3D. I've found that with some music sources using the CMSS-3D and Creative's 24-bit Crystalizer at the default settings the speakers or headphone are easily driven to distortion with the low frequencies. The sound you'll hear is very dependent on the response of the headphones you use. I use the Sony MDR-V900 headphones. They seem to sound okay with the card.

(It sure is nice to have choices.)

 

[alcoholbob]

The Crystalizer pumps up IMD like no other. There is a peak at 50-70hz (+10db, which I believe is 200% distortion, louder than the source playback signal), and one -15db (33% distortion) peak at 7KHz. Minus these peaks the average is about 0.4% IMD, which isn't that bad, even though its 16 times more IMD than without the Crystalizer.

Anyway, the IMD peaks are the real bad part, its louder than the music being played!

http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q4/soundblaster-x-fi/crystalizer-imd.png

 

[CVSiN]

i had 2 sets of Klipsch Promedia 5.1 and both blew thier amps within a year... and didnt have the bass punch that the 5500s have.
(nor the DTS and very good DD decoders built in)