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Can anyone give me some advice on good PC speakers? I don't have a stereo now, so I want something with some great sound for mostly music. A 2.1 system is good enough; I don't need all the surround speakers.

Also, would adding a sound card improve the sound? I am currently not using one...

Anyone?

Without a soundcard, you wont be getting any sound from your computer, nor will you have anywhere to plug the speakers in. Though you may have intergrated sound on your motherboard, in which case you already have a soundcard (just usually not a very good one). Getting a better one may help, if you have good speakers.

So get speakers first, then decide if you need a better soundcard. And I dont have any knowledge about what brands of soundcards/speakers are better than others since I find the intergrated audio good enough when I use the speakers that came with my computer.

Errr, that's what I meant. The motherboard has an integrated card.

I am thinking about Klipsch proaudio 2.1 speakers. Everyone seems to say they're really good.

Bookshelf speakers and an amp is the way to go. Unless you have some sort of budget... in which case they still might be the way to go, depending on which bookshelves you get.

In all likely hood, you'll do just fine with on board audio. I have nForce on my motherboard mated to a pair of Alesis powered stuidio monitors and neither me nor my friend notice any discrepancies. As for speakers, that's terribly subjective. I used to have a Logitech 2.1 system that was good enough for general listening so I can't imagine anything wrong with Klipsch. Before you drop the dough see if you can find a place to listen and compare different models. If you find a friendly enough place I'd recommend bringing CDs that you're familiar with to use when comparing.

If you want cheap with decent quality, I bought a 2 speakers Labtec set for like $10 at Best Buy.

If your card supports 4+.1 audio (which almost any onboard soundcard should), you may want to invest the money for one. I find the center channel useless for most purposes. My 4.1 system I bought for 50 bucks ages ago let's me easily hear where enemies (and friends) are coming up on me from when gaming online.

My suggestion is to price a decent 2.1 system for your PC. Then check the price difference to upgrade to 4.1. Then, check the 6.1/7.1 systems just for grins (although, the price jump tends to be considerable past that). If it's not a considerable bit more for the upgrade, why not just get it?

I think it depends on the motherboard. For example, with my last motherboard, there was a distinct difference in sound quality between the onboard sound and my Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card... which seemed goofy as hell considering how tricked out the onboard sound was, compared to the TBSC. (I didn't even bother trying this motherboard's onboard - I just put in my sound card which I know to work well.)

If you have any friends with sound cards you might ask if you could borrow one to see if there's a difference between it and the onboard sound.

For a 2.1 system, I think an Altec Lansing system would be your best buy. Price is around $25 - $40 for a rather cheap, good setup.

Beowulf wrote:Bookshelf speakers and an amp is the way to go. Unless you have some sort of budget... in which case they still might be the way to go, depending on which bookshelves you get.

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Puny computer satellite speakers do not compare to real bookshelves.

When talking about cheap bookshelves, all must hail the Sonic Impact T-amp. $30 for a decent speaker (and K1000, for us headphone geeks) amp. What more could you want?

Ypoknons wrote:When talking about cheap bookshelves, all must hail the Sonic Impact T-amp. $30 for a decent speaker (and K1000, for us headphone geeks) amp. What more could you want?

Hey, it's my amp...

My speakers are discontinued, which is why I was able to pick them up cheap, but their replacement in the lineup is $99 each, which isn't bad for really good speakers. The replacements are unsheilded though, so they won't play so well with CRTs.

I love my Klipsch Promedia 2.1's.
I got my set from Dell on sale for $100 last year.

Though for serious listening, I have the mobo's optical digital out feeding my home theater system.

Beowulf wrote:Hey, it's my amp...

My speakers are discontinued, which is why I was able to pick them up cheap, but their replacement in the lineup is $99 each, which isn't bad for really good speakers. The replacements are unsheilded though, so they won't play so well with CRTs.

Sounds interesting - what have you got? I've thought about bookshelves every now and then but got suckered into headphones all the time, but now that I've got the HD595, a Headroom Micro and an Indigo DJ I might experiment a bit with speakers.

I have a 50W/ch Rotel amp driving Axiom M3ti speakers. It sounds quite nice (my only headphones are Grado SR60s)

I've got some Onix ELT bookshelves from http://www.av123.com (not to be found on the website, since they've discontinued the line).