Need help picking a sound card+speaker combo

lepai 2020a+ amplifier paired with dayton b652 speakers as featured in this article http://www.cnet.com/news/build-your-own-desktop-stereo-for-under-70/ are really quite good for $70. sure, it might be a low end amplifier however it will work for this situation and you wont get any better without dishing out quite a bit more cash. the speakers are excellent for the money and compare with speakers twice their value favorably.

it will blow away the z313 and likely even the z623. the only thing the logitech sets will have is more bass... and for that you could add a $109 dayton sub-1000 which is a 100w subwoofer to pair up with those daytons and have yourself a party. certainly a good option if you wanted hifi on a budget.


...hmm actually it looks like dayton has made a kit out of them since they were so popular including their own brand of amp http://www.parts-express.com/dayton-audio-t-amp-and-b652-speaker-bundle--300-650 though it might lack the power of the 2020 it may be worth looking into as an alternative.

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"desktop" sized speakers are satelite size. these will lack bass response and require a subwoofer to hit low. bookshelves are a bit bigger and generally more able to hit low notes without a subwoofer (though a subwoofer still helps).

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i would avoid genius speakers personally. they are junk and are "loud" but not with good "quality" to sound. i'd say they are worse than logitechs in the same price ranges.

the z313 is not bad for the price but is certainly not going to compete with anything in a higher price bracket. we have a pair and while good for the $30 you pay there are certainly better options if you have the budget for it. logitechs tend to have average sound quality and a bit more volume/bass then other sets. if you needed cheap.. they are okay.

the z523 is a step up from the 313 but still not as good in terms of audio quality as the daytons. you might get a bit more boom due to the subwoofer but if you added a subwoofer to the daytons it would blow them away.

if bass is not a concern the creative t20/t40 sets are pretty good as well

the jbl creature iii are also a respectable set of speakers for quality.

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as far as soundcards are concerned... the dg cannot really be compared with the z. instead, the z should be compared with the dx.

any of them will be able to power your 558's. i'm not sure about the z but i know the dx uses the same dac chip as the stx which is double the price.

asus cards use "dolby headphone" while creative uses "sbx" (formerly they used cmss3d). i'd recommend you youtube a few videos for comparisions to see which virtual surround you like better. if you dont care about virtual surround for games then you can ignore this point.

i've heard that drivers are easier to work with on the creative cards but i use many asus products and i dont have an issue. sorry, i dont use a soundcard so i cannot tell you specifically about their soundcard drivers.

is there a reason why you cannot plug into the front of your pc with headphones? if your front panel audio jack is bad then you could replace it. or put a front panel bay device in to give you more usb ports and front panel audio which works again.

what shops can you buy from in belgium that sell computer speakers and home audio speakers/amplifiers? ie can you only buy from belgium stores or can you ship from lets say amazon uk?

what sort of a budget were you looking at? the price of the z523 and below i'm guessing? please specify.

we own the z313, z130 and the older x530 and for the price they certainly are decent speakers. i've also heard the z523 locally and its not bad with a slight edge on the cheaper models. i've never been disappointed by them but after using hifi speakers i dont think i could ever go back. however, moving into hifi can get expensive.

almost no pc speakers can compare with hifi speakers. i'm just not sure if those are going to be in the price range or not given how things likely cost more for you then it does for me.

so a front panel device will not work. okay. i can tell you that if you that using the rear port may be a pain. if you need to constantly disconnect/reconnect the headphones reaching behind the case to do so gets old fast. also, if you leave them always plugged in the pc will always default to playing on the headphones not your speakers. you would then manually need to change your default audio device in windows sound settings.

also of note is that the headphone jack is the same one used for front left/right speakers so you would be using the same port for speakers and your headphones which would mean unlplugging/replugging between the two. it seems that this isnt the case on the z though as it uses a seperate headphone jack. you would still need to swap windows settings though.

now, some speakers do come with a speaker jack on the front of them which could be used as a workaround. now this could work fine or could give you a bit of distortion or crackle depending on how its wired up.

however, things would likely be easier if you could just use the front case connector for your headphones. if the headphone jack will not let you seat your larger headphone plug then i would just buy a 3.5mm to 3.5mm cable with a smaller end which will fit flush in the port. it would certainly save you alot of hassle since you can just plug/unplug from the front instead of fiddling with windows settings or unplugging from the rear.

as far as difference between the dg and z? the dg in general will have the same audio quality as decent motherboard onboard sound in most cases. it just has dolby headphone support (which most motherboards lack) as well as a more powerful amplifier which is fairly decent for its cheap price. the creative z however is a step up in terms of quality from onboard sound, has virtual surround (sbx instead of dh in this case), a good amplifier capable of driving even expensive headphones as well as having dts-c/ddl support which allows 5.1 out of your optical jack. of course you may not use all of these features now.. or ever.

to sum it up simpler:
xonar dg = motherboard sound quality
creativ z > motherboard sound quality

often the dg is suggested in cases where the user doesnt want to spend any money on a high end soundcard yet they want virtual surround or need to power high end headphones since for about $25 it adds dolby headphone and a powerful amplifier. its also used in cases where the user has a strict budget but their onboard sound is crackly/distorted adn they want a fix for that without getting an upgrade in quality. otherwise.... its almost equal to what onboard sound will sound like.