Z-2300 vs Z-5500

[Visaoni]

I'm looking to upgrade my speakers, and I would love to get a Z-5500 but I'm not sure I have enough placement options to let it sound anywhere as good as it should.

I play games, listen to music, and watch movies on my computer. When playing games I am at one edge of the room, and when watching movies I am against the opposite wall, in a corner. It is a fairly small room, but a corner is pretty much a corner. I cannot rearrange things to make the situation any better. Is there any way to get a good 5.1 experience in a situation like this?

If, as I suspect, there isn't, would a Z-2300 produce comparable or perhaps even better sound quality? I realize without actually seeing the room it may be impossible to give a sure answer, but I have very little experience with audio equipment, so even an uninformed guess would be a great help.

And last but not least, some suggestions for an appropriate sound card would be greatly appreciated.

 

[TidusZ]

Z-2300's are definitely not going to give you better sound quality. Perhaps you could open up paint and draw a pic of your room cus I'm not too sure what your talking about. The ideal setup is to have the back satellites on a stand or shelf pretty close behind you, in my room i just screwed them into the ceiling - it's not ideal but its decent. You can adjust the volume of the back speakers, louder if they are further away than they should be ideally. Sound card doesn't matter a whole lot, but the Asus Xonar 7.1 or HT Omega Striker are good for under $100 usd.

 

[Visaoni]

Room Diagram

When watching movies I am usually on the bed. Which means I can't have a rear left satellite without it being right above my head, at least during movies.

From what I've been reading, it also seems that placing it back there would be too far back for 5.1 while I was sitting at my computer. It seems that the corner I marked with red would be a better spot, but then it would actually be in front of me during movies... which I assume is not ideal.

This is why I asked if the Z2300 could possibly be better than the Z5500 in my situation. There just is no good place for the rear left satellite.

 

[TidusZ]

I think for 5.1 placement your best bet would be to attach the left rear right above your bed and the right rear on the back wall over to the right. Then you'd wanna have rear speakers turned up when playing games or turned down when watching movies. Realistically the z-2300's might be the way to go - they are loud and good, not quite as loud or quite as good as 5.1 z-5500's but for your small room they'll be plenty good enough. If the extra cash is worth spending on 5.1 then you should consider rearranging your room to better suit the setup, I did so when I got my z-5500's. It is very easy/quick to change the back speaker volume in relation to the front using the remote control btw.