I finally bought and it sounds.....kinda bad.

[wilmeland]

room acoustics

My guess is what one of the earliest responses suggested. You need to adjust the system based on room acoustics.

"The room is a reasonably large loft. 12 foot ceilings, no carpet."

That sounds potentially cavernous to me, depending on whether you have plush or more utilitarian furnishings. This is not neceessarily the sole source of "muddy sound", but can certainly amplify and contribute to that quality. Might want to flatten the equalization a little more, move speaker placement away from walls/off the floor and add some sound absorbing features in the room.

Differences in room acoustics can make a generally "passable" source sound ok or like crap. The volume level your computer speakers generated likely was not enough to make the worst of a room that may be acoustically too alive.

 

[wire]

+1

Odds are, your system is of high enough quality that it's reproducing the compressed music's chopiness that the computer speaker couldn't.

I run a pair of these speakers off my computer , they are a few years older .
My computer system
CT-17 Carver
TFM-35 Carver
Polk PSW-100
Klipsch Quintet ( old version )
They sound fantastic , I can have the cut off on the Sub all the way down and they still sound fantastic . When i first bought them off ebay , i hooked them up to my Bryston system and my girlfreind and roommate couldn't beileve how good they sounded ( very musical ) . I have also pumped over 125 watts per channel into them and they sound fantastic ( for only 5 minutes or so ) .
The PSW 100 sub is a very musical sub , great for music , not very boomy , but smooth . Not sure if the PSW10 is the same .
I will borrow my girlfreinds and hook them to my puter system , hers are the newer version , ill let you know the difference in the older version and newer version .

 

[autoboy]

Please stop talking about the ipod. It sounds like the OP has some serious setup issues and he is fairly novice at setting up a full 5.1 system. He may even have inadvertently set one of the cathedral listening modes or somthing to that effect. Here is what you do.

BTW, a good rule of thumb: Make sure that the ipod volume is at no more than 3/4.

Turn the crossover for the sub all the way up or if it has an off switch set it to off. You are going to set your receiver to do the sub crossover.
Set the sub phase level to zero.
Set the sub volume to 1/3.
Make sure your speakers are set up with the proper connections. Black goes to black and red goes to red. Mixing this up can affect the phase of the sound. Some receivers can correct for this in auto setup buy many cannot.
Set microphone on a tripod in the listening position. You MUST use a tripod. You can make your own with coat hangers or whatever but do not set it on the couch.
Run the auto setup at a quiet time. Leave the room until it is finished. ANY extra noise will through it off.
After it is finished go back in and set your speaker sizes and crossovers. Auto setup is known to have issues with this. Set the speaker sizes to small and set the crossover to 100. Normally I would say 120 but your sub is not that high of quality so you would be better off with a bass hole from 120-100 than boomy voices from the sub. With Satelites, the musicality of the sub is pretty important.
Check the sub volume level on the receiver and make sure that the receiver is not giving more than +/- 20db in boost to the sub. If you are at 20db or more, you sub is not turned up enough or is too high and you need to adjust the sub accordingly and repeat until you are below 20db.

Now you should be good to go. Make sure when you play the ipod that you are not using any sound processing. Your receiver should say Stereo and your left, right, and sub should be the only speakers with sound. Try that out and report back.