I had been pondering for what seemed like forever over whether to get a soundcard + £200 speaker set or go for separates. I had been put off by all the reports of problems with soundcards under Vista and after some research found separates not to be as expensive as I thought they would be so that's the route I took.
This post is geared towards the kind of people looking to spend around £200 on PC speakers (as I noticed was quite often the case on these forums) or like me, unsure about spending a ton on a decent soundcard only for it to snap, crackle and pop.
First of all I needed an amp. After lots of research online and a couple of trips to hi-fi shops I picked up the Yamaha RX-V361 [spec] for £120. In a phrase most of you will be familiar with, it has a good bang for buck ratio. It's a 5.1 A/V receiver that can output up to 100W per channel on 5 channels (speakers) and can connect to a self-powered sub. Crucially it has 2 digital-optical in ports for connecting from the digital-optical out on your onboard soundcard. Your onboard soundcard has pretty much no processing to do and just passes the sound onto the A/V receiver (still in its digital form) for processing. This basically means you're not penalised in any way for not having a discrete soundcard.
The Yamaha amp can do a whole lot more but I won't go into anymore detail about it here. If you want to know more, check out the specs.
For the speakers, I got a pair of Mordaunt Short Avant 902i's for £110 which look and sound fantastic. You can probably get bigger and slightly better performing speakers for around £120 but I was limited by space and I just loved the look of these.
I did originally intend to get 5 speakers but a mate insisted I was better off getting a pair of the best I could afford now, then add more later if I felt it necessary. I am so glad I followed his advice because they sound fantastic and I don't see the need in adding anymore as I watch movies in the lounge where I got a 5.1 setup.
As an added (super) bonus, my Sennheiser HD595 headphones sound 100x better than anything I've heard before through the Yamaha amp. The speakers sound really great, but sad to say the headphones put them to shame.
I spent a further £17 on a 3 metre optical cable and £30 on speaker cable (2x1m). I probably shouldn't have got such fat speaker cable as it was a bugger getting it to fit.
Altogether this setup cost £277. That's less than what a high-end sound card and half decent PC speaker set would've cost and in my opinion, sounds better.
This post is geared towards the kind of people looking to spend around £200 on PC speakers (as I noticed was quite often the case on these forums) or like me, unsure about spending a ton on a decent soundcard only for it to snap, crackle and pop.
First of all I needed an amp. After lots of research online and a couple of trips to hi-fi shops I picked up the Yamaha RX-V361 [spec] for £120. In a phrase most of you will be familiar with, it has a good bang for buck ratio. It's a 5.1 A/V receiver that can output up to 100W per channel on 5 channels (speakers) and can connect to a self-powered sub. Crucially it has 2 digital-optical in ports for connecting from the digital-optical out on your onboard soundcard. Your onboard soundcard has pretty much no processing to do and just passes the sound onto the A/V receiver (still in its digital form) for processing. This basically means you're not penalised in any way for not having a discrete soundcard.
The Yamaha amp can do a whole lot more but I won't go into anymore detail about it here. If you want to know more, check out the specs.
For the speakers, I got a pair of Mordaunt Short Avant 902i's for £110 which look and sound fantastic. You can probably get bigger and slightly better performing speakers for around £120 but I was limited by space and I just loved the look of these.
I did originally intend to get 5 speakers but a mate insisted I was better off getting a pair of the best I could afford now, then add more later if I felt it necessary. I am so glad I followed his advice because they sound fantastic and I don't see the need in adding anymore as I watch movies in the lounge where I got a 5.1 setup.
As an added (super) bonus, my Sennheiser HD595 headphones sound 100x better than anything I've heard before through the Yamaha amp. The speakers sound really great, but sad to say the headphones put them to shame.
I spent a further £17 on a 3 metre optical cable and £30 on speaker cable (2x1m). I probably shouldn't have got such fat speaker cable as it was a bugger getting it to fit.
Altogether this setup cost £277. That's less than what a high-end sound card and half decent PC speaker set would've cost and in my opinion, sounds better.