optical sound or logitech,creative pc speaker system

[baka101]

Hi

I can't decide what road I should go download to choose a speaker system for my Creative X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series it has a Optical output it also has ports for computer 5.1+ speaker system. So my question is should I get a onkyo tx-sr501 then run optical out from x-fi into optical in of onkyo tx-sr501, but I hear some reports about not getting full 5.1+ surround with Optical usually just only two speakers working.

Or should I choose to get a logitech or creative analog speaker system but really I want digital sound but all the pc speaker system I find are usually only analog.

So any help is great

Thanks

[MrBoylan]

Hi

I can't decide what road I should go download to choose a speaker system for my Creative X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series it has a Optical output it also has ports for computer 5.1+ speaker system. So my question is should I get a onkyo tx-sr501 then run optical out from x-fi into optical in of onkyo tx-sr501, but I hear some reports about not getting full 5.1+ surround with Optical usually just only two speakers working.

Or should I choose to get a logitech or creative analog speaker system but really I want digital sound but all the pc speaker system I find are usually only analog.

So any help is great

Thanks

The only ways you can get discrete 5.1-channel or 7.1-channel sound from any source, whether it's a PC sound card or a Blu-ray Disc player or an HD cable box are to use a digital connection (fiberoptic, coax or HDMI) or to use a multi-channel analog connection. This PC card actually supports both options. However most of the inexpensive PC sound systems do not have multi-channel analog inputs. Generally speaking, these cheap packaged computer speakers have stereo analog inputs which are then matrixed out to get a rear channel and center channel, if the source is a 2-channel matrixed source. Some do have fiberoptic or coax digital inputs and these can support discrete surround sound assuming they have a 5.0 or 5.1 or 7.1 speaker system. But generally speaking, the amps and the speakers in these inexpensive packaged systems are... well... CHEAP.

You're generally going to get better results by buying a home theater receiver, though the Onkyo TX-SR501 is a very old model. The current comparable model is a TX-SR506. This way you can take either the optical digital output of the card (simplest way) or take the multi-channel analog outputs of the card (more complicated, less flexible way) and allow the receiver to amplify the multi-channel signal, sending it to a 5.1-channel or 7.1-channel speaker system.

A modular approach like this may end up costing a bit more than a pre-packaged PC sound system, but it's easier to upgrade, and will give you better overall performance than a pre-packaged system. If you get a good high quality receiver, then you can always start out with just stereo speakers and add the center channel, surround speakers and subwoofer over time as budget permits.

What you might want to consider, however, is whether you'd like to hook up other sources to the system -- now or in the future -- like maybe a Blu-ray player, a high def cable or satellite box or a high def game console. If you may want to do this now or later, then look for a home theater receiver that also features HDMI inputs with HDMI Audio decoding. If you get the TX-SR501 or TX-SR506, you will not get audio decoding over HDMI.

For that feature, take a look at the Onkyo TX-SR606. There are also a number of Sony, Yamaha, Denon and Pioneer receivers that offer HDMI audio and video support.

Hope that helps.

-Chris