5.1 speakers

well I have the Creative Inspire 5.1 Digital 5700 and i think that they are one of my best buys! They are Great, the speakers have an external Amp which decodes DTS, Dolby Digital and EAX even.
The other great thing about it is that it is a perfect match to a Creative SB sound card (as they have a "unique" connection called Digital DIN, which is one cable (provided with speakers) from sound card to speakers and you have midrange home theatre 5.1 sound only available to creative products!)
It also has the digital opitcal, digital coaxial and analog front and rear In, for external DVD players, home theaters, PS2's etc.

http://www6.tomshardware.com/video/02q1/020325/sound-05...

other Speakers that may interest you are the Yamaha TSS1B 48W or the up coming Logitech Z680 THX 5.1

but even though the Creative are a bit $$$ maybe, they are a perfect match to an Audigy/Audigy 2 sound card, and they sound great, especially for 5.1 surround sound.

hope i helped a bit :-))

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I agree. However for Audigy2 I think you should go for a 6.1 system. Creative has released the Inspire 6700 6.1 system. With an extra rear-center speaker. Great stuff. However if you want an external DD5.1 decoder there's the DTS3500.. but if you want to use speakers exclusively for the PC (or the likes) I do recommend the passive 6.1 system

what is this Klipsch ProMedia™ DD 5.1 Multimedia Digital Decoder Preamplifier?????? can i use any speakers with it or just Klipsch.

It's a hardware decoder for DVDs with DD 5.1 encoding. I think it does DTS decoding too. Anyway, hardware decoders are unnecessary IMO because today's software decoders do a fine job decoding. I use PowerDVD 4.0 and it does great on the audio. The practical benefit of having a hardware decoder is that you'll probably get some buttons and dials to play with to tweak the sound.

This Klipsch decoder should work with other speaker systems, as long as they have three standard mini-phone analog inputs like the Promedia 5.1 does. Also, your soundcard will need to have a digital output to connect to the decoder.

Ritesh

Do you know of any Software decoders that decode DTS

Both PowerDVD and WinDVD do, but you have to pay like $15 or $20 extra for the DTS version!

Ritesh

Yes, i Agree that now-a-days software decoders a very good, and if you don't really care about just haveing normal sound quality/separation on 5.1 audio, then software decoding is definitly the way to go (it also lets you then buy a cheaper set of speakers, as you don't need and amp.)

But if you seriously want good 5.1 dolby digital (which doesn't matter that much as the Audigy 2 will be able to decode that) but more importantly 5.1 DTS, a hardware is much better than software (as in most cases).

The clarity/crispness and mostly the sound separation and the overall sound field will be much better and of higher quailty. You will also get the full benefits of the higher encoded DTS.

And i say this in experience, as i first of all, have a home cinema (with a big sony amp.) and then on my PC i've got the Creative Decoder and Speakers and i also use Power DVD 4.0 to play DVD's, and switching between hardware and software decoding is a noticeable difference (note: going from software to hardware is not, bad to good, it's good to great!)

But all up it really depends on how much you are willing to pay for the sound system (for me, i though i might as well go nearly full out and buy a decent set of speakers). But the cheapest option for good DTS and DD is the software decoding option along with a Huge range of excellent, inexpensive 5.1 speakers.
Or there is the more expensive alternative where you go out and buy a set of 5.1 Digital speakers ie. Yamaha, Creative, Logitech, Klipsch (getting to more proffesional audio) or finaly Boston Acoustics (seriouse 5.1 PC Home Theater) You could even go out and buy a $1000 dollar Amp and $2000 worth of speakers, and hook that all up (as i've know some to do) and have a Really Good sound system, thogh personally i think that's a bit much for a PC :-))

i'm sorry though if i rambled on, but i hope i helped in some small way :-))

cheers

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