Best o59ption for 5.1 setup?

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Blakestr

[H]ard|Gawd
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Aug 11, 2004
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I recently upgraded my sound card to an HDA Claro plus, thinking my speaker issue was a sound card/software problem, where in reality it is most likely in the speakers themselves (probably the sub amp). Besides, that new sound card is wasted on a $59 speaker system.

Primarily I will use the speakers for gaming...and music; I have some of the ADH 700 headphones for when I am feeling audiophileish.

I'm looking at getting an Onkyo HTIB but think it might be overkill, this is a small 11 x 11 office so I don't need all those watts, it's in a condo so the walls are paper thin. . Still it would be useful, I may use the old 5.1 setup in my home theatre and just put the new one there, but I am looking to get some opinions on the matter.

I've considered using surround headphones but I haven't been convinced the technology is quite there yet...
 
woah. 11x11 is a "Box room". Thats always a pain to make speakers sound good because of standing waves and the like. This will make certain frequencies louder/quieter within your particular room. 11ft would make 250h/z a big problem along with 150h/z and 205h/z and 50h/z. So using speakers in this room untreated would result in the sound being a little off. So it might be the room rather than the speaker themselves. Still better speakers would still sound better regardless.
 
Blakestr said:
Budget is 500, MAX. Don't really want to have to spend that much
Click to expand...

Do something to not make the room a box, and youll improve the sound of the speakers you already have.Stick something on one of the walls, and if possible something in the corners. Should help, and can be done for not very much. A big peice of rockwall covered in canvas would do wonders and absorb some of the standing waves that make the room bad accoustically. Just something to break up the box shape. If it doesn't work, then you still have a better room for your next lot of speakers. Headphones are the easiest option for rooms that aren't perfect accoustically.
 
I misspoke - the room is not truly a 10 x 10...there are angles to it, it might be more accurate to say it is around 120/130 squarefeet of space....but the door/entrance is at a 45 degree angle...
 
Blakestr said:
I misspoke - the room is not truly a 10 x 10...there are angles to it, it might be more accurate to say it is around 120/130 squarefeet of space....but the door/entrance is at a 45 degree angle...
Click to expand...

Even so if the main walls are perpendicullar to each other it will still effect the sound. Having the angles helps with oblique reflections and such things, which does help! But my point is, that the room itself will always effect the way a set of speakers sounds, get the most amazing set up in the world, and put it in a "bad" space, and it will sound like much cheaper speakers. Fixing this even a little should ensure that the items you have sound much better with very little capital spend. Even if it doesn't make them sound amazing, the sound properties of the room would be set for any other speakers you choose to put in it. It is a nice sized room to be working with, as it isn't overly large so you wont need much material to improve the sound.
Of course the easiest way to get great sound in any space is headphones.
 
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