Dida said:
one additonal question:
do you think my sound card can support and power the klipsch speakers adaquately
Yup, I've got the same soundcard, and it works great, with the volume maxed on both soundcard and speakers, there's only a *very* soft buzz that I can only hear by putting my ear right up to the speakers. (You won't be running these things at full volume when you're at your computer btw, unless you're interested in damaging your hearing)
stormbind said:
Here are my opinions:
1. Many small speakers at low volume produce louder sound than one powerful speaker. When you have 5, 6 or 7 such satellites with energy split between them, their maximum output is not important - unless there is something spectacular about the size of your room!
2. Satellite speakers positioned at head-height (consider sitting positing) deliver the least distortion. A retail package with stands may seem able to deliver this, but I mount mine on the wall for optimal effect. If that isn't possible then think about the stands.
3. All budget solutions have cut corners but which detail matters? The most common piece for a company to remove the (often single) mid-range speaker. In such cases, the "quality brands" suffer from being unable to produce mid-range frequencies (they do high & low only). In contrast the "value brands", which always fail at the extreme frequencies, perform really well in the middle frequencies which is actually better for producing voice. So if you are on a budget, avoid the "quality" products and look for those which try to deliver value for money.
4. Relying on the sound card to produce high quality sound effects reduces overall cost. Getting the same result from the amplifier is more expensive, and is the same result anyway.
5. The sub-woofer is the part most worthy of extra investment as it's effects cannot be reproduced by other means - although mounting any sub woofer on nails sticking out of the floor can help to reduce muffle.
And here are my opinions on your opinions and such
:
1. If you're looking for music fidelity, cds are only stereo, and should be played as such. However, solutions like the Klipsch setup are more than adequate to play at an acceptable volume level with only 2 speakers, unless, like you said, you're room is very large.
2. I don't think the Klipsch satellites are easily wall mountable, but generic speaker stands will fit them. I just have mine on various pieces of furniture that I've rearranged to hold my speakers up.
3. I can't really agree with this... if something has dropped mid-range quality for better highs and lows, it's not really "quality", is it? The Klipsch speakers best the Logitech at all frequencies, and the Creative S750 have slightly better mids due to larger midrange drivers, but a weaker subwoofer.
4. I'm not following here... do you mean reciever rather than amplifier? The Klipsch speakers have an amp built into the sub enclosure, but all it does is power the speakers, you need a soundcard to supply sound to the speakers. (Well, you can hook up stereo sources to the speakers without a soundcard, but the amp is still just powering the speakers, it doesn't do anything with the sound)
5. The Klipsch sub is the best of any computer speaker system... it's drivers also happen to be side-fireing, so raising it from the floor would have little effect. (It also has a sub plugin on it, so you can plug in expensive self-powered home theatre subs to it...)
