Audio Upgrade

FireFox · Post by **FireFox** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 12:42 pm

What I’ve got:

MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum/SLI with onboard Creative SoundBlaster Live 24-bit
“Homemade” 4 channel Amp with
4 x 10” Speakers (150 Watts each – I think) “Huge big@$$ Hi-Fi speakers”

What I’m looking at:

Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi ExtremeMusic (R 1 150,00 US$ 129,00)
Logitech Z-5500 Speakers (R 2 900,00 US$ 325,00)

Cost: R 4 050,00 (US$ 454,00)

PS: Not actual conversion to US$. Took the two known (X-Fi) and got ration of 8.91 and worked on that. (Shipping costs & taxes!)

Now that is digging rather deep into my back pocket so the questions:

1) Between the 4 speakers (no centre or subwoofer) setup to a 5.1 will there be great change/improvement?
2) Between the Sound Cards will there be a significant
a. Sound quality difference?
b. Performance difference?

I did a little reading up on the X-Fi range and found that the Fatality was real appealing but at R 2 500,00 (US$ 280,00) that is just to steep. There seems to be very little difference between the Platinum and ExtremeMusic only the Internal Drive bay and Remote control, which I considered and came to the conclusion didn’t need.

On the other side the Speakers I’m still torn between 5.1 and 7.1 (decent ones that is). Read a review on the GigaWorks S750 and they really appear to be what one should be getting, but alas R 4 500,00 (US$ 505,00). Not likely! Any comments on the difference 5.1 to 7.1?

Main applications will be Games, DVD’s and Music. Just looking for a decent entertainment setup.

The bottom line, is this worth the $$ or am I setting myself up for flushing my $$ down the drain and are better of spending it on something else.

Sir Sam II · Post by **Sir Sam II** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 12:54 pm

Are the 10\" actual woofers or is that the height of the unit & speaker so to say? I'm using 2 old chapel theatre system speakers with 10\" woofers, 3\" mids, & 2\" tweeters through the A 2 channel input. With a 12\" Xplod Subwoofer hooked through a Sony home system amplifier(150Watts) through the rear input. With that the sound quality to me isnt really excellent, its just loud, & I got half of it for free by scrounging stuff that was going to be thrown away at my old office. So with that said I'd save my money on buying sound & use it on something else more beneficial like a video card or motherboard & cpu.

But yet I can't make use of the quality of my sound card because I am hooked through the analog port & its not using the 5.1 capability it could with buying a speaker system capable of it. It really leans towards what you want/like more.

fliptw · Post by **fliptw** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 1:30 pm

you are better off spending the money on speakers, and forgetting about the soundcard. what you have now in the Augidy 2 is meets your requirements inside the computer

7.1 is a waste also. if you set up a 5.1 speaker system properly(ie square with you in the centre), you don't need the extra speakers for positional audio. In a 7.1 system, the add two more surround satelites to no more real value.

the difference between a 5.1 and 4.1 is functionally that you get a seperate base input, and to balance it out, you get a centre - if you really wanted, just buy a powered bass and plug that into the orange jack with a mono jack.

Immortal Lobster · Post by **Immortal Lobster** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 1:45 pm

He has a Live, not an Audigy. I just went from a 24bit Live to an X-fi, huge improvement imo. also, if its onboard, Id highly recomend getting something thats not onboard. it takes some load off the CPU.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 1:57 pm

Get something with SP-DIF out, and a 5.1 amp/speaker set with SP-DIF in. Most decent home theater amps will have optical or coax SP-DIF in, just use that.

Grendel · Post by **Grendel** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 2:50 pm

The X-Fi doesn't have a SP/DIF matrix encoder (like all Creative sound cards..) -- you will only get PCM (2.0) on anything different than a DVD as source (pass through). In addition to analog in, the Z-5500 have SP/DIF in tho IIRC.

Top Wop · Post by **Top Wop** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 3:25 pm

It doesn't matter how spiffy your onboard sound card is. Due to its nature it will be low powered and will pick up noise from the motherboard (IE: the quiet buzzing sound you hear as you move the mouse).

Always go for an add-in and put it in the slot farthest away from the video card.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 4:48 pm

The slot furthest from the video card would be bad, since the last PCI slot in most motherboards doesn't support busmaster mode. Also, I am using my onboard sound from my Nforce2 in dolby digital mode through optical SP-DIF and I do NOT hear a buzz from my mouse or any other device on the system for that matter. Even when I was on an old Prologic amp that was analog only I never heard a buzz, it is up to the quality of the board to get rid of buzzes like that.

Grendel · Post by **Grendel** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 5:02 pm

Krom wrote:The slot furthest from the video card would be bad, since the last PCI slot in most motherboards doesn't support busmaster mode.

Huh ? Since when ? There's no such restriction on any board I know of (all Intel tho). The only caveat I'm aware of is IRQ sharing -- usually w/ the USB controllers.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 5:46 pm

My old Abit 440BX board, the VIA boards I have had, my current Nforce2 board, other computers I have worked with, all have the same limitation, the last PCI slot is bus slave only.

Immortal Lobster · Post by **Immortal Lobster** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 6:32 pm

Ive always put a sound card in the lowest slot....thats the fisrt Ive heard of this limitation, yes even on my nForce2 400 board, the SBLive was in the lowest slot.

FireFox · Post by **FireFox** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 6:38 pm

So what you are saying is I should try and get the Speakers hooked up via SP-DIF instead of analogue as quality is better right.

As far as I can see the X-Fi ExtremeMusic as stated by Grendel do not have SP-DIF but with the drivebay of the Platinum it does support SP-DIF? (That means at least R 600,00 more!). Interestingly enough the onboard soundcard I have does support optical as well as coax SP-DIF.

Taking a cost point of view I should then rather only go with the speakers. The only down side is that Logitech doesn't sell those speakers with the Optical or coax cables (pea brains). Shouldn't be a problem getting those thou.

I presume the optical cable will be the better choice between the two as well? Further more as I have never used SP-DIF connections or anything of the sorts, my next question is whether there is any internal/other connections from the DVD drives to the motherboard/Soundcard that I should have/be aware of for this to work or is the \"standard\" connections sufficient.

(Sir Sam II the speaker unit itself is about table height, and consist of a 10\" Speaker with a 2/3\" Tweeter. If I get the time I'll just make sure of the size might be 8\" I might even take a pic and post it

)

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 7:43 pm

SP-DIF is all digital, so if you are playing a DVD with say PowerDVD, you can just tell PowerDVD to use the SP-DIF as output and it will run the audio directly from the DVD right through. As for optical vs coax, its less about the sound quality, both are the same digital bitstream, its more about distance, optical goes further. Once you have SP-DIF, a buzz from the mobo, or the mouse moving are all irrelevant since they won't make it into the digital signal to the amp.

Do keep in mind that I am not using a set of speakers built for a PC since finding one with SP-DIF inputs is too much of a pain. I am using a Yamaha 650w home theater in a box, the same kind you would use on your TV/Set top DVD player.

Grendel · Post by **Grendel** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 11:39 pm

Let me rephrase that -- no Creative sound card has a DD or DTS encoder. Unless you play a DVD and pass its DD/DTS bitstream through the soundcards SP/DIF interface, you will only get 2.0 (called AC3 not PCM BTW) on a Creative SP/DIF output. If you have a 5.1 speaker system connected digitally you will only get sound from the two front speakers unless you play a DVD. You'll have to connect the X-Fi analog outputs to the Z-5500 to get 5.1 sound in games or use CMSS.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 8:58 am

My amp also has 5.1 analog inputs for just such an occasion.

FireFox · Post by **FireFox** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 12:57 pm

So your saying for all round use I'll have to use the analogue connections in any case?

Now reviewing the Speaker options again my main reason for replacing these (with which I'm very pleased actually) is that the amp that was made is defective and couldn't be fixed and I want to fix/replace it now with something decent. Front speaker has a buzzing noise when volume is low (This is not pc/mobo sounds trust me I know) and the speakers volumes or not sync (have to counter with setting the mixer to compensate).

So maybe the alternative (depending on how much it'll cost) is to actually just get a decent 5.1 Surround Amp and a Centre speaker and get a suitable Subwoofer to add to the current setup.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 1:24 pm

Yeah, unless you can get a card with a Dolby Digital or DTS encoder like the Soundstorm chip on my mobo. I am going to need a card with realtime DD or DTS encoding myself next upgrade just because I have been spoiled by Nvidia.

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