WTB new system - is all digital better?

[rayearth]

I am in the market for a new speaker system. I estimate that my future room size will be between 10x12' to 12x14'.
Uses: 1) TV, 2) movies, 3) games, 4) music in that order of use.
Requirements:
1) I want to avoid standby hiss as much as possible. The hiss that speakers make, even when there is no signal is very annoying to me. Speakers that were as silent at zero input as if they were on, would be perfect.
2 )<$500. I could go higher if the quality is that noticably different.
3) Sound clarity and balance is prized over mere loudness
3) 2.1 vs 5.1 - I don't mind a 2.1 system if it fit the bill, but prefer 5.1 for "immersiveness." I hope 5.1 is not overkill for this size room

For these reasons I have been eyeing the Logitech 5500's along with a dolby digital live card. How is this combo? Would I be better off with a receiver with digital inputs and regular speakers?

Please help as I miss my Monsoon MM2000 speakers (gave to my little brother).

 

[Xeero]

I am in the market for a new speaker system. I estimate that my future room size will be between 10x12' to 12x14'.
Uses: 1) TV, 2) movies, 3) games, 4) music in that order of use.
Requirements:
1) I want to avoid standby hiss as much as possible. The hiss that speakers make, even when there is no signal is very annoying to me. Speakers that were as silent at zero input as if they were on, would be perfect.
2 )<$500. I could go higher if the quality is that noticably different.
3) Sound clarity and balance is prized over mere loudness
3) 2.1 vs 5.1 - I don't mind a 2.1 system if it fit the bill, but prefer 5.1 for "immersiveness." I hope 5.1 is not overkill for this size room

For these reasons I have been eyeing the Logitech 5500's along with a dolby digital live card. How is this combo? Would I be better off with a receiver with digital inputs and regular speakers?

Please help as I miss my Monsoon MM2000 speakers (gave to my little brother).

it really depends on your budget and how important you music is to you. if you could careless about music and just want volume and loud farty bass, then by all means, go for the 5500. they are unbeatable for the price.

on another note, why a dolby digital live sound card? why not a x-fi or a2zs? the only real benefit from dolby digital live is in games. but games don't sound THAT much "better" with digital out. you will not need dolby digital live for dvd movies, and i don't know if you really want to listen to stereo music in 5.1

 

[rayearth]

You are correct - I don't want to listen to music in 5.1. However, I just want to get away from the baseline hiss that most audio systems are prone to - I was wondering if an all digital system would eliminate most of the hissss.

 

[AdamW]

There's no such thing as 'all digital'. Your applications produce a digital sound stream. At some point, somewhere, something is going to convert that into the analog sound wave that comes out of the speakers so your ears can hear it. Your ears don't do digital, and neither do speakers . I guess what you mean is "does having the DAC (Digital-Analog Converter, the thing that actually does this conversion) outside the computer reduce the noise floor", in which case the answer is "yes, but you may well be able to get it low enough for your purposes without doing that". Onboard sound is notoriously noisy. A dedicated sound card _will_ be much less noisy, right off the bat. The hideous rat run of cables most people have coming out the back of a typical living room PC setup doesn't help noisiness either. Plan your cable runs, separate the audio stuff as far as possible from other cables and DEFINITELY from power cables, and you'll reduce the RF interference and buy yourself another drop in noise.

Having said all that, though, for a living room setup, it probably does make more sense to go digital out of the PC, because (especially for surround sound) there's no decent speakers that don't want to be connected to a proper grown-up receiver, and any decent HT receiver will have a reasonable DAC, so you may as well go digital out of the PC into the receiver and let it talk analog to the speakers. And yes, you'll probably do better with a proper receiver and some good cheap hi-fi speakers than with a Z5500. I'm currently doing something similar to you. My planned setup was this:

Chaintech AV710 SP/DIF out -> Pioneer 815S receiver -> 6x Paradigm Titans and whatever half-decent sub I can buy with the money left over. I have head-fi wallet tendencies, though, so two of the Titans magically turned into Mini Monitors instead. Weird how that happens. I'll be getting the sub after my next paycheck, now.