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why buy pc speakers

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demons9872

Gawd
Joined
Aug 18, 2003
Messages
935
i was using a set of logitech 5.1 speakers aboout 2 days ago but decided to use my sony home theater speakers wow what a difference they are less wattage than my logitech and my dad klipsch but the sound twice as lound and clear
 
Well I went with my Klipsch promedia 5.1's mostly due to their size, and the fact that they were on sale for $250. I don't have enough room for a real stereo in my dorm room, and for $250 they are better than pretty much anything else you'll find at that price.
 
demons9872 said:
i was using a set of logitech 5.1 speakers aboout 2 days ago but decided to use my sony home theater speakers wow what a difference they are less wattage than my logitech and my dad klipsch but the sound twice as lound and clear
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mind telling us the price of the home theater system?
 
superlyduper said:
size, price, and cheap subwoofer.
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you can buy a nice good 5.1 receiver with some good 5.1 speakers for about 200 to 250 all day long, and the size,price and cheapness is not that much different, then a computer setup.
 
Zardoz said:
you can buy a nice good 5.1 receiver with some good 5.1 speakers for about 200 to 250 all day long, and the size,price and cheapness is not that much different, then a computer setup.
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examples? besides, computer speakers can be cheaper. there are many decent 5.1 sets <150, and some decent 2.1 sets for <100.
 
Echo,

Generally, PC speakers have all their amplification built into the subwoofer, hence the reason all the speaker wires originate from there. Some do have the amps built into each speaker, but for the most part, they don't.
 
superlyduper said:
examples? besides, computer speakers can be cheaper. there are many decent 5.1 sets <150, and some decent 2.1 sets for <100.
Click to expand...

I'm curious also where you can get a reasonable set of 5.1 speakers for about 100-150$.
 
My guess is the above poster was talking about logitech speakers. They use nice drivers in them, but they forgot something: No matter how well you notch filter a tang-band fullrange speaker, you must use a proper enclosure. And yes, they have used tang-band branded drivers in many of their models....great speakers, crappy application...most of their drivers are built around acoustic suspension applications, and to run them outside of it requires lots of heavy filtering...which would negate the cost advantages of using a fullrange driver.

If you can deal with floorstanders, and a large center, you can buy a 5-channel speaker set form MCM for about $75...pay $80-100 for a cheap sub, and there you go...it's a bit over the pricerange, but you get the idea.

If you want for the $200 pricerange, EBay, yamaha BP4500 speaker set. I got mine for $200 shipped, and with a little bit of acoustic damping foam (the rubbery type, about $10 to do all of them) on the bottom of the speakers, they are a superb bang for the buck.

Sometime I should post my $650 home theater, complete with 27" TV with component ins, progressive scan DVD, and a full yamaha 5.1 setup, and no cube speakers whatsoever. I'll need a new digicam before pics come though, mine's broken :(

Speakers are always costly...remeber, you are actually buying 5 speakers and a sub...and when you go to a larger driver in the speaker, you have to re-do lots of things about the speaker it is being placed in...so cost goes up accordingly to speaker size. If a floorstander is cheaper than a bookshelf model, there is a good reason why (either: the shelf model is overpriced, or the floorstander is not even close in build quality).

For computer speakers, people go for them for convenience...no special adaptors needed, just plug in the thing like the manual says, and go. The amp is built in the sub, so you don't have a huge receiver/amp on your desk, etc. Plus the speakers are smaller....few people can stand having 6.5" shelf speakers on their desktop....plus most cheap 6.5" speakers sound terrible nearifeld like that.
 
Mustang,

I was actually reinforcing that poster's question, because I can't figure out where you can get any at all decent HT speaker sets for only 150$, because any sort of 5.1 receiver will eat about 100-200$ of that budget.
 
mustang your setups require 5.1 amplifiers. i guess you could get a cheap used reciever from the thrift shop though. That said, I'd bet the sub in the logitech sets are more powerful than the yamaha, dont knwo about the quality comparison.
 
mustang_steve said:
Sometime I should post my $650 home theater, complete with 27" TV with component ins, progressive scan DVD, and a full yamaha 5.1 setup, and no cube speakers whatsoever. I'll need a new digicam before pics come though, mine's broken :(
Click to expand...

if you can't post pics, could you post your components, models and such. Especially the reciever/TV and speakers? Thanks!
 
Sure, I'll post manufacturer's links to the stuff I can, the DVD player is so damn cheap that magnavox won't even put it on their site (the DVD player is inda crappy, but I was very impressed with the video quality, so I went for it, at $35 it was a damn steal).


Keep in mind I did get this stuff on sale, new on ebay, and at sam's club...so the pricing may be hard to repeat, but the point stands that you can have a HT setup for cheap.

Receiver: $150 (sale, shop was clearing out old models) http://www.yamaha.com/cgi-win/webcgi.exe/DsplyModel/?gAVR00010RX-V430

Speakers: 6.1 $200 shipped (ebay)
http://www.yamaha.com/yec/products/speakers/NSBP4500.htm (Good idea to use some vibration damping foam on the underside of the speakers, but aside from that, a very nice bargain) I don't use the "sixth" speaker since my receiver is only 5.1.


TV: $225 (sam's club)
http://product.samsung.com/cgi-bin/nabc/product/b2c_product_detail.jsp?eUser=&prod_id=TXP2730X/XAA

DVD player: $35 (sam's club) (yes I got it for a bit less than thte online price, about 5 months ago).
http://www.samsclub.com/eclub/main_...&oidPath=0:-23541:-23966:-24045:-36781:865639

That's $610 right there, add in some coin for some 14ga speaker wire (damned spring clips), and some of my homemade interconnects and you are right about at 650. I used the subwoofer cable that came with the kit. The sub is not too bad at all for being a boxed set 6.1" sub, but the real gem is having a cheap boxed set that isn't some "jewelcube" crap.
 
I think the point was that a good 5.1 pc speaker set is around $200. So why not spend a little bit extra ($50-$100) and buy a decent home theatre system for your pc, with probably a better quality set of speakers and sub?

I can understand space concerns if you have very little of it, but other than that it's a heck of an idea.
 
Killer69 said:
I think the point was that a good 5.1 pc speaker set is around $200. So why not spend a little bit extra ($50-$100) and buy a decent home theatre system for your pc, with probably a better quality set of speakers and sub?

I can understand space concerns if you have very little of it, but other than that it's a heck of an idea.
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because a $200 set of speakers is a pretty good upgrade from a $50-100 set of speakers. $200 is stretching it for many people
 
On the topic, does anyone know of a decent-ish 5.1 setup for under 400? The only one I can think of off the top of my head are the Rocket Tykes and Hsu Ventriloquist. Haven't heard either, but they both come from good companies at least =]
 
If you are limited on space, the athena micras are supposed to be pretty sweet. They also go for almost nothing on ebay.
 
i got the sony str-k660p theres 420 watts got them from my local wap shop for 99 bucks they retail for 200 in bestbuy
 
I know a perfect reason why not to buy home theater speakers.

I got a nforce 2 soundboard with the famous Soundstorm. Got the brilliant idea that now I don´t have to limit myself to computer speakers with it´s dolby encoding feature I can choose between computer and home theater speakers.

It was a brilliant idea got me 5.1 gaming even in games that only support 4.1 gaming. But with the Dolby encoding you can mix and create that missing center channel. Awesome for racing sims and flight sims especially as well as allowing for smoother panning.

Anyway what happens. No more soundstorm and no other soundcards that will encody dolby so I now have my digitheatre platinum home theater speakers that aren´t useful for anything because they can only be used with spdif.

So that is a big reason not to get home theater speakers you won´t get surround in the majority of your games. There has been rumours for years about standalone soundstorm 2 or something coming out but have yet to see it. There is Cmedia but it´s onboard so I will have to trade off image quality.

Now I have moved so I would just upset my neighbours anyway with my gaming so just got me some headphones :D It´s not the same but well close enough. My speakers still rocks for movies that bass really shake the house lol. Never listen to music so...

But that is a big reason to get computer speakers, compability.
 
slpaulson said:
Well I went with my Klipsch promedia 5.1's mostly due to their size, and the fact that they were on sale for $250. I don't have enough room for a real stereo in my dorm room, and for $250 they are better than pretty much anything else you'll find at that price.
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i spent $230 on the setup in my sig (denon receiver=180, 2x polk audio R-15's = $49.99 already had the old z560 sub) and it sounds so much better than the original set of z-560's i had.

I also live in a dorm so i know that space can be tight, but it all worked out nicely and everything has its own place.
http://1stclasspcs.com/uploaded/IMG_1224.JPG there is a pic of the setup before i added the sub to the mix, the sub sits right next to that ghetto printer
 
My home theater stays on the entertainment center, I think a 5.1 setup on a computer is useless (no thats not a flame, or anything, just MO ;) ) so I just use a 2.1 setup. If you get a pretty good 2.1 setup (90 bucks or more) then it'll sound great...my logitech 2.1 setup is bitchin'. Sounds wonderful.
 
I used to use home speakers and a reciever but they're too large and cumbersome, I plan on getting rid of them soon. I have some generic 2.1 crappy speakers bought a fred meyers for way to much.. I prefer to use my Sennhieser Pro 280 headphones these days.
 
GodsMadClown said:
No, that's a big reason to get a receiver with multichannel analog inputs.
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ditto, my receiver (yes the $150 one, yamaha's bottom of the line) has discrete inputs...so any somewhat new receiver worth it's salt should as well.
 
Here is something no one has seemed to address yet: Most PC-Speakers are shielded, which is not so common among home theater systems. Granted I've heard many people say that they don't have any problems with unshielded speakers near their hardware, as it is supposed to be less of a problem with LCDs nowadays. But that is a reason people have traditionally opted for PC speakers over home theater or stereo speakers for their computer audio needs.
 
cheap, size, and simple...

Plus the Klipsch Promedia series sounds pretty good for the money IMO
 
Stapled said:
Here is something no one has seemed to address yet: Most PC-Speakers are shielded, which is not so common among home theater systems. Granted I've heard many people say that they don't have any problems with unshielded speakers near their hardware, as it is supposed to be less of a problem with LCDs nowadays. But that is a reason people have traditionally opted for PC speakers over home theater or stereo speakers for their computer audio needs.
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HT speakers are shielded. About any speaker meant to be used as mains or centers these days are shielded. Rear speakers usually are not. There was a time when only the center channels were shielded, but now shielding is pretty much the norm.

There are some speakers menat for monitoring apps (like some esoteric hi-fi stuff, or studio stuff) that are not shielded...those aren't "HT" speakers ;)

Now...most HT subwoofers are not shielded...that has to do with proper placement. It's extremely rare to have a sub close enough to the TV for shielding to be an issue and still have the subwoofer properly placed in the room for best sound.
 
GodsMadClown said:
No, that's a big reason to get a receiver with multichannel analog inputs.
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Money money money always funny ;).

Haven´t seen much receivers that can encode dolby digital and is able to up mix 4.1 games :)

Not to mention how expensive they are.
 
LOL a REAL home theatre will cost upwards of $1000-$1500 for reciever and speakers. those HT in a box all sound like crap, sony is no exception, sony pretty much defines the sound of crap. if you want cheep/okay sound quality get a good pioneer elite reciever and polk audio speakers all around
 
Nah my digitheatre Platinums sounds just fine. Don´t know how much they cost in dollar but sub 500$ anyway. Sounds excellent but not enough if you have a really large room of course. It´s when you have to fill those it start to get expensive :). If you want to fill them with good sound and not just noise that is ;).

But everything is relative. Of course the 5.1 don´t hold a candle to my big Brothers 1500$ mega ass stereo speakers :D He bought a 1500$ receiver too but can´t say the difference where that great kind of a waste of money.
 
oqvist said:
Nah my digitheatre Platinums sounds just fine. Don´t know how much they cost in dollar but sub 500$ anyway. Sounds excellent but not enough if you have a really large room of course. It´s when you have to fill those it start to get expensive :). If you want to fill them with good sound and not just noise that is ;).

But everything is relative. Of course the 5.1 don´t hold a candle to my big Brothers 1500$ mega ass stereo speakers :D He bought a 1500$ receiver too but can´t say the difference where that great kind of a waste of money.
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Eh, I've got a 1600$ [retail, paid 1k] receiver... and once they hammer out HDMI 1.2 or 1.3 specs for Blu-ray/HD-DVD, I plan on getting separates. I've heard on two different occasions a 4000$ combo, the Emotiva DMC-1 and MPS-1, and they are REALLY nice. A good processor and good amp do make a decent difference. I notice that my receiver doesn't have the power to truly drive my speakers as they are 4 ohm all-round, and the DACs in it aren't the greatest either.

I'd like to actually hear some of these HTiB's. The very name sorta makes me shudder, as I just have a really hard time believing that ANY of them sound good. I'd definitely say go for used speakers off Audiogon myself.
 
oqvist said:
Haven´t seen much receivers that can encode dolby digital and is able to up mix 4.1 games :)
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That's what your sound card is for =] Worse comes to worse, use Creative's POS CMSS to generate surround sound. I think that that works for games, but I'm not positive. I wouldn't use it in the first place, as it sounds like ass.
 
klowngoblin said:
LOL a REAL home theatre will cost upwards of $1000-$1500 for reciever and speakers. those HT in a box all sound like crap, sony is no exception, sony pretty much defines the sound of crap. if you want cheep/okay sound quality get a good pioneer elite reciever and polk audio speakers all around
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sony ES is some pretty damn good stuff...but pricey.

And for "boxed" systems, there are a few that are good after a few tweaks...all the "cube" style systems suck badly though.

Refer to the other thread wth my cheap-ass HT setup...given it's not great sound, but it is decent sound...and at the priceof the speakers are receiver together it's a nice starting place.

Anyways Polk is horrible bang for the buck. Might as well go with cambridge soundworks newton series if you are going to spend that kind of cash...or best bet is just buy some axioms, if I had the cash to spare I would have those instead of my yamahas.
 
BO(V)BZ said:
That's what your sound card is for =] Worse comes to worse, use Creative's POS CMSS to generate surround sound. I think that that works for games, but I'm not positive. I wouldn't use it in the first place, as it sounds like ass.
Click to expand...

Yeah but the problem is that only Soundstorm of the hardware accelerated options have that feature. And Cmedia is also only onboard audio so there is no option for we who have speakers without separated rear channels like home theater speakers generally have. I need to have the input to my reciever in dolby digital format to get true 5.1 surround.
 
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