Looking for a new setup

[DavidQ]

Not sure if this belongs in the home audio/hifi forum but here goes,I've had my X-Fi Xtreme Music for about 6 months and it's fantastic and I was in a small-ish bedroom but recently moved into one of the bigger rooms in our house. Now the first thing on my mind is a good sound setup and a bigger desk, I'm currently using a set of 5.1 logitech speakers which are "ok" however I'd love a set of floor standers and an amp to go along with my new decor and desk. I have no real knowledge of what's hot and what's not in the sound world, I have about £200/£250 to spend on an amp and some floor standers. Can anyone suggest what would be ideal for me?

Thanks in advance

 

[Agent0range]

I'm looking for the same sort of thing and, like you, know little about whats good and what isn't in the hi-fi world for PC use. Here's some advice a mate of mine gave me on another forum:

You can get a decent amp for £100 nowadays, but its like a lot of other things it really depends how much you value (financially speaking) good sound quality.
My last purchase was a pair of RTL TDL 4 speakers - I bought them second hand for £600. They are huge big barstewards: and sound best with a bit of volume ( but thats my neighbours problem, not mine but with my record deck and a good basic amplifier the sound quality is, in my opinion, superb.

Its a purely subjective thing - a bit like trying to justify buying an 8800GTX Ultra - you cant really objectively debate whether its worth the money because its really down to the individual to judge whether its worth it to them. Of course how much money you have is a factor but I still spent £300 of my grant on an amp in 1984.

Overall, spend at least £100 on an amp and maybe £100 - £150 on speakers and it should give you a reasonable quality - but check for reviews ( try here for a start http://www.avreview.co.uk/defaultreviews.asp?sp=&v=3 ) and treat it as you would buying a CPU or some other PC component.

He also uses an X-Fi Xtreme music card and has it set with some tweaked settings in Audio Creation mode. I've found the Gaming mode and Entertainment mode aren't great soundwise.

Here's some group reviews from AVReview that may help your decisions:
Group Test: Budget Stero Amps £180-250

Hope this helps you on your search for PC hi-fi equipment, it's pointed me in the right direction anyway.

 

[DavidQ]

Thanks a lot mate, that's very informative and I feel now I can go and make a decision on what to buy.