Desktop Audio: Old 5.1 Home Theater System vs. New Powers Speakers

loaba said:

The A2+B's seem more like what I'm looking for, but then I'd have figure out how to integrate a sub. Shouldn't be too hard. Having said that, the Z506's seem like a great deal for the money.

Something having to do with a Crossover, Bobkn may know more on that then i do.
I see your point if already have a Receiver you can just use speakers, may spend less buying a decent PC 5.1 speakers and save on the figuring out on how to get it to work well with the receiver and speakers and receive all channels of surround.

What works for me is having good quality sound for my PC and keeping my AV Receiver separate for TV, Music and Movies.

I know less about crossovers than I should. Basically, a crossover sends the proper frequencies to the appropriate driver. (In a 2 way system, highs go to the tweeter, and lows to the woofer.)

For a subwoofer, the best available option appears to be LFE (low frequency effects). The device would send only low-frequency stuff to the sub, which would need no low pass filter. In some system it sends less low frequency signals to the woofers in the primary speakers, which relieves them from the burden of reproducing low frequency sounds.

My sub gets its signal from a Harman Kardon receiver. It has a sub output, but it's not limited in frequency. The sub has a variable upper frequency cutoff, which has to be adjusted to optimize the response of the system.

If you really want a surround system, you may want to stay with computer speakers. I had a set made by Monsoon which was perhaps a little better than most of the Logitech products, but Monsoon has gotten out of the computer speaker business. (The amplifier in my system died a year or so ago, and I didn't attempt a repair.)

Very Well explained tho ! Not too many brands of PC speakers, i remember being on the hunt year back. Seems Logitech is about the best out there now, Creative used to be better. I feel is if the integrated sound device on PC has an Optical Out and you have a AV 5.1 Receiver that has a Optical input then your good, other then that then your using a 3.5mm split to composite jacks from Green connector on Integrated Sound device and so on if rest works well and still need an composite input.
Example

I've finally decided that I'm going to keep my old Sony STR-K850P in service. It's a smallish unit, does way more than it needs to and only has about 100 watts power. I'm pretty sure that performance stacks up with better computer-specific speakers. I'll get back to 5.1 at some point and it'll do that too.

So what I'm gonna end up doing is replacing all the stock speakers that came with the Sony. I've heard good things about the Micca mb42x bookshelf speaker. They're 80 bucks a pair and the matching center is about another 50. I'll just part it out and replace 'em 2 at a time