Shopping for 5.1 Speaker Setup

[Bad213Boy]

I'm looking for a 5.1 speaker system for my pc. I want something that has a powerful subwoofer. I been looking at reviews and forums and I've seen a lot of people liking the Logitech Z5500, but most places are sold out. From what I've heard, the Logitech Z906 isn't as good as the Z5500. I own a ASUS Xonar HDAV 1.3 audio card, so I'm looking for something that will take advantage of my audio card. I've heard the logitech systems don't take advantage of audio cards. I'm looking to spend no more than $400 for 5.1 surround system but has the best bass.

What are some good options out there. There's also a lot of online specs that don't specify the RMS Wattage on the Sub. It seems like a lot of the good stuff is sold out because of the holidays. I think I wanted the ONKYO HT-S6300, which had a subwoofer rated at 290 watts, but it never stated whether it was RMS or not and is sold out everywhere. After watching a youtube video, the sub was huge. I haven't been able to find anything close to the this wattage for the sub. I'm think I should probably wait until the holidays are over and new tech start rolling out, but not sure. Any help here would be great.

[EniGmA1987]

I think the Z5500 was the old model that was replaced by either the Z906 or something else, that would be why no one has it anymore.


And just so you know, you cannot use your sound card for any 5.1 setup. Sure you can pass the sound through it, but the card will do no decoding or anything. Your sound card only has a left and right channel RCA output if you want to use the sound card for audio processing. Anything else surround sound uses a digital output of one kind or another (HDMI, spdif) and all processing is done in whatever end device you send it to. In the case of a Z5500, the sucky integrated circuitry in the subwoofer.

[Bad213Boy]

I should have mentioned that my sound card is the Deluxe model. My sound card has 4 dual RCA outputs for analog 7.1. Looking at most Xonar HDAV 1.3 pictures, you'll see the main board only has 2 dual RCA outputs, but their is a daughter card that comes with the extra RCA outputs needed for 7.1. It also has HDMI imput and output.

In order to get the best sound quality and punch I'm looking for, am I looking for a 5.1 speaker system to hook up to a receiver first and then to my sound card? Most home theater systems connect to a receiver anyways. It doesn't look like there's any good 5.1 speakers that have analog RCA or 3.5mm connections.

And ya, I definitely don't want something like the Logitech stuff. I want to be able to control the LFE crossover separately. That crack where it's controlled by a subwoofer knob is retarded.

[EniGmA1987]

Well, using a receiver normally goes in digital and does processing on that end. So if you want to use your sound card's processing and better components then you should look for either self powered speakers with RCA inputs, probably having to buy speakers as a pair or individually and settings them up in surround yourself. Or you can get a receiver that accepts RCA inputs for all surround channels AND allows a straight bypass of all processing so it just takes the multi-input and passes it straight through to the power amp outputs, which you then connect to whatever speakers you buy


Does your sound card's control panel have an LFE page where you set the frequency for the crossover? It seems like mostly you just want a really great sub, and the other surround speakers are a bit secondary in nature. So you could buy a sub like one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16882290130
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16882780012
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16882780078
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16882290036

run a line from your sound card to the sub over RCA, and set the crossover either in the sound card control panel or on the sub itself. This also gives you individual volume control on the sub.



Then you can either get something like these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16882269004

and also a receiver to power them. The receiver can either take in each individual channel over RCA if you want your sound card to do all processing, or just a spdif digital input if you would rather have one cable from your computer to the receiver.







Kinda a mish mash way of doing it, but if would get you what you want for a sort of cheap price. I just dont really see a way of getting any 5.1 system that allows you to do the processing on your sound card at all for anywhere under $400.

[DeltZ]

I should have mentioned that my sound card is the Deluxe model. My sound card has 4 dual RCA outputs for analog 7.1. Looking at most Xonar HDAV 1.3 pictures, you'll see the main board only has 2 dual RCA outputs, but their is a daughter card that comes with the extra RCA outputs needed for 7.1. It also has HDMI imput and output.

In order to get the best sound quality and punch I'm looking for, am I looking for a 5.1 speaker system to hook up to a receiver first and then to my sound card? Most home theater systems connect to a receiver anyways. It doesn't look like there's any good 5.1 speakers that have analog RCA or 3.5mm connections.

And ya, I definitely don't want something like the Logitech stuff. I want to be able to control the LFE crossover separately. That crack where it's controlled by a subwoofer knob is retarded.

The typical set up for home cinema surround sound usually entails hooking a powered subwoofer to LFE output on a receiver via RCA. RCA is only meant to carry low level signals not amplified outputs. The other 5 speakers should connect to the receiver over far more substantial speaker cable which is either bare wire or banana plug connected.

Depending on the front/surround speakers you'll still have to play with subwoofer crossover/phase control to get the optimal weighting of the frequency spectrum, something which is unique to every system and room.

So yeah, you won't find good 5.1 with 3.5mm jacks (PC 5.1 is hardly high end) or RCA because RCA doesn't usually carry power (usually limited to speakers of a few watts i'm guessing) and 3.5mm is used in non discrete channel simulated surround sound where your stereo output (usually seen in PC setups/TV receivers always use white/red RCA for stereo) goes into a subwoofer which has integrated cross over and amplifier which all the "surround" sound speakers plug into....(i guess possibly more acceptable for a 2.1 stereo system for music)

I'd guess the best solution is either bistreamed HDMI out from a soundcard/graphics card into a receiver with then does all the decoding/amplification for speakers. Else the older solution of an optical out to receiver. I'm not familiar with digital outputs using SPDIF but it is possible given all your hardware supports it..

[Bad213Boy]

Thanks guys. Ya I'll just keep looking around. What I hate is that sometimes the subs have two different watt values, one for max and another for average. Some don't tell you which it is. I guess it might be safe to assume that most will probably illustrate max.

[NKrader]

Well, using a receiver normally goes in digital and does processing on that end. So if you want to use your sound card's processing and better components then you should look for either self powered speakers with RCA inputs

my onkyo 606 has better sound proccessing than xonar stx. and its not that expensive of a reciver.. and one of the most expensive sound cards.

i dont know why you would even worry about sound card, just use digi coax out and get a good reciver and decent speakers.

[MattiasNYC]

my onkyo 606 has better sound proccessing than xonar stx. and its not that expensive of a reciver.. and one of the most expensive sound cards.

i dont know why you would even worry about sound card, just use digi coax out and get a good reciver and decent speakers.

In addition to processing, to my knowledge, all sound cards are susceptible to noise induced from the internals of the computer. This applies to the analog signal which therefore needs to be properly shielded. So the obvious workaround is to go out digital instead. Another advantage of digital out.

[EniGmA1987]

In addition to processing, to my knowledge, all sound cards are susceptible to noise induced from the internals of the computer. This applies to the analog signal which therefore needs to be properly shielded. So the obvious workaround is to go out digital instead. Another advantage of digital out.

And with all the components smashed into a receiver there is no interference?

[MattiasNYC]

And with all the components smashed into a receiver there is no interference?

Not from the computer obviously. I believe the difference is that the computer is a general-purpose computing device and as such most developers don't care about interference that affects analog audio. It's likely not perceived as financially beneficial to deal with it. A receiver by comparison is by definition designed to produce good sounding analog audio and companies compete with each other on that parameter. I would think they care a great deal more about and deal better with interference.

[Ket]

Just to point it out, 5.1 setups are still every bit as good as other setups, in fact I prefer 5.1 over the rest as audio just ends up sounding "tinny" to me and stuff just doesn't sound natural. Apart from that, I really can't hear any audio quality difference. Theres also no EMI problems with analog as long as you A: Buy a decent sound card to start with, and B: just put some BGA heatsinks (copper are best) on the main ICs of the card to shield against EMI, problem solved. If that isn't enough for you you can even go as far as to buy a flimsy plastic document holder and cut it up to fit the front/back of your soundcard to shield it even further from EMI. I guess I should also mention that if you want to blame poor sounding audio on anything you should suspiciously eyeball people who use onboard audio and claim they "can't hear the difference", and send strongly worded emails to Microsoft and Creative. MS are responsible for killing hardware accelerated audio in the OS, and Creative are responsible for killing 3D positional audio, which most will probably remember as Sensura.

Anyway, as for speaker setups and depending on how much effort you want to put in, I have a most excellent set of Logitech X540s where I modded the sub that came with them, excellent cheap solution if you want basic 5.1, surprisingly good in fact with a modded woofer. Another good cheap solution that doesn't really need any modding (don't know if their sold in your country) are the Xenta XForce 5.1s, the woofer that comes with them is 40RMS watts, the setup in total is 80RMS watts. On the upper scale of things.. the Z5500s are still the best, if you can find them anywhere. Makes me sad thinking about all the times I could of bought some Z5500s after hearing them but never did