New speakers and/or sound card?

spleenharvester · 30 Nov 2010 at 20:35

Few questions here,

I currently have some Altec Lansing VS2321s that cost me £20 3 years ago, running on an onboard ALC'883. I feel since everything else is now fairly decent the speakers could use an upgrade.

It's mostly for gaming's sake and the fact my speakers now sound a bit worn down. Problem is, a) I'm on a budget and b) I'm short on space. If I went for 5.1 speakers the far right speaker would be off the side of my desk, however I could probably stand it on something.

Whaddaya all think? Worth it? Not worth it? Get 2.1s instead of 5.1s? If I got a sound card would I see a CPU performance increase?

Cheers

Marsman · 30 Nov 2010 at 21:20

Unless you can position the 5.1 speakers correctly, it's a waste of time really. 5.1 is about the placement, not that fact there are just more speakers. Get a 2.1 set I'd say. What are you looking at spending?

angela · 2 Dec 2010 at 16:00

How old is you PC? ... if it's couple years old,I'd get soundcard, even cheapo Creative will be better than many onboards!
As to speakers, x-530 can be bought cheap on the bay, or get dissent 2.1 if you feel like 5.1 not going to fit - it's basically up to you!

Marsman · 2 Dec 2010 at 20:09

TBH, it really depends on the speakers. If you buy a £20 set of 2.1 speakers for eg, then I wouldn't bother with a sound card. A sound card is definitely worth having if the speakers of choice are able to reveal the extra quality of the sound card.

spleenharvester · 3 Dec 2010 at 23:00

Marsman said:
Unless you can position the 5.1 speakers correctly, it's a waste of time really. 5.1 is about the placement, not that fact there are just more speakers. Get a 2.1 set I'd say. What are you looking at spending?

I was thinking just the same setup as 2.1 but with the extra two speakers pointed towards me either side, would that improve the gaming side of things noticeable? And £30, might go a bit higher if I do decide on 5.1 (Like this: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=SP-124-CL&groupid=702&catid=22&subcat=165)

Are there any stands to mount the other two behind me?

angela said:
How old is you PC? ... if it's couple years old,I'd get soundcard, even cheapo Creative will be better than many onboards!
As to speakers, x-530 can be bought cheap on the bay, or get dissent 2.1 if you feel like 5.1 not going to fit - it's basically up to you!

It's roughly 3 years old, the motherboard is anyway - running on the ALC'883 Audio chipset.

Marsman said:
TBH, it really depends on the speakers. If you buy a £20 set of 2.1 speakers for eg, then I wouldn't bother with a sound card. A sound card is definitely worth having if the speakers of choice are able to reveal the extra quality of the sound card.

I was thinking that, would it be worth it on a say, £45 pair of speakers?

Basically, it's cheapish 5.1 vs decent 2.1s here... hmm... I am still using some £18 Altec 2.1 speakers I bought 3 years ago so anything should sound better.

spleenharvester · 4 Dec 2010 at 23:29

Scratch that, got some new X-530s for £34.99 in an offer, snapped 'em up straight away

Only problem is they test perfectly but the sound in WMP is still 2.1 only, is this due to my WMA files being 2.1 only or something?

Marsman · 5 Dec 2010 at 00:02

That's not bad at all.

is this due to my WMA files being 2.1 only or something?

No, because pretty much all music is stereo. When using 5.1 speakers it is just upmixed to accommodate the extra channels. Have you altered the Windows sound properties for your on-board to 5.1?

Pulseammo · 5 Dec 2010 at 00:39

You need to enable something like Speaker Fill if you want it to mix the sound to all speakers. That should be a in your control panel somewhere if your onboard supports it.

Creative cards call it something like CMSS 3D I think. You can also do it through plugins for your various applications also. Foobar has one called "Channel Mixer" and for video I'm pretty sure you can select to upmix the channels in the media player called "Media Player Classic HC". Perhaps Windows Media Player has those options also.

AMG · 5 Dec 2010 at 19:48

music is not really more than 2 channals unlike games, than again the creative and xonar(asus) should be able to mimick even on a 2.1 system.

spleenharvester · 5 Dec 2010 at 20:20

Yeah, turned out it was speaker fill. Thanks guys

Just one last question before I bugger off, is it worth getting a sound card? Even just to take some load off of the CPU?

Marsman · 5 Dec 2010 at 20:39

Not IMO, not just for taking load off the CPU. Years ago it might have been a good idea, but now it's hardly noticeable.

There is a chance that a sound card will improve the sound from your X-530's, but it's hard to say how much difference there will be. If you are happy with the sound you are getting, I'd say stick with on-board audio.