PC Speakers as Home Theater Speakers?

[Electric Rain]

Hi, I’m new here, and I’m not all too sure if this is the proper place for this question, though I hope it is and I am truly sorry if it is not.

I have a "Game Room", where I have my TV and my computer. It's a small room, 100 square feet, with an 8' ceiling, making a pathetically tiny 800 cubed feet room. However, this is a good thing. Because the smaller a room is, the less powerful your speakers have to be to fill the room with sound, and less power = less money. Perfect! I've done lots of research on the matter, and although I haven't found much, I did find one drawback to using PC speakers as HT speakers; simply that they aren't powerful enough to fill a decent sized room with sound. But my room is tiny, not decent sized!

Anyway, this question has probably been asked many times, though I haven't found the answer on Google, so I'm gonna ask myself! Everyone knows it, PC speakers are cheaper than HT speakers are, and I'm on a bit of a tight budget. So, can I use PC speakers for my PC and TV, but spread them out over the room, rather than having them at close range on a computer desk? What are the advantages and disadvantages of doing this? What is a sufficient wattage for the speaker set for a room of my size? Basically, what I'm asking is, “what do you guys think?” Oh, and one more thing worth noting, I plan on having either a 5.1, 6.1, or 7.1 surround sound speaker system set up in the room. Thanks.

Rain

 

[kay]

I've heard great things about people using the Logitech Z-5500 system for HT surrounds.

http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/details/US/EN,CRID=2,CONTENTID=9486

There's an editorial Audioholics review of it - do a search and see what they thought. For your size of room it should be perfect. Also note, that you save A LOT by not having to buy a receiver - the Logitech system includes a Dolby/DTS processor.

 

[Reorx]

Whats your price range?
For many years I was looking to go the other way...from PC speakers to a HT in a box system. The quality of high end PC speakers in my opinion are not equal to the equivalent priced HTIAB system.

I had a 12x12x8 room.

I did go to a few small house parties (100people max) this year where the host was using a laptop and pc speakers to push their mp3's. The systems cost them about $500, and it sounded 'ok'. He could of gotten a decent HTIAB, a bunch of dsp's, true surround sound, future flexability/upgradability, and more for that price.

Reorx

 

[Electric Rain]

Wow. That speaker system is great, but to answer Reorx's question, my price range is, uh... lower than that... I planned on getting Creative's DDTS-100 Decoder (Google it, you'll get reviews up your ***.), and getting a speaker system without digital decoding, because they're cheaper. Creative's decoder also features a "night listening enhancer", which decreases the volume difference between loud and quiet parts in the source you're listening to. This way, when there's quiet dialog that I need to turn up to hear, and a huge explosion directly afterwards that shakes the house because of the huge volume difference, it won't wake up the other family members in the room on the other side my game room.

Because I do most of my gaming and TV watching late at night and early in the morning, (yes, I stay up that late... I can't help it...) I won't need a very loud system. At all. So, I was looking at this system: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16836116153 because it's cheap, and according to the reviews, it's not a bad system, to say the least. So, the Creative Inspire P7800 system, and the Creative's DDTS-100 Decoder. What do you all think? Thanks again.

Rain

 

[jaxvon]

Well, you can of course do better, but it's better than nothing. I'd try to extend your budget at least a little bit, as Creative's lower end systems aren't very impressive at all, at least to me. I'd suggest you look at some other offerings, perhaps from Klipsch or Logitech. If you really want the best for computer speakers, the Swans speakers that Newegg carries sound awesome.

And btw, the "night listening" feature is also available on recievers. It's technically known as "compression". Not that it matters, but just some more knowledge that you can file away for later.

 

[Electric Rain]

Compression, I see. Thanks for clarifying that.

So, anyway, I've found them. The perfect set, Logitech's Z-5300e, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16836121121. 5.1, (I'm beginning to think 6.1 and 7.1 are overkill.) THX Certification, 280 watts, good price... and according to the reviewers at Newegg, they're nearly flawless. 74 reviews, 4 reviewers give them a four (out of 5), 1 gave them a 3, and the other 69 gave the set a perfect 5. From the specs and all of the reviews, (I read every single one) it seems like the perfect system for me. What do you guys think? (Yet again. ) Thanks.

Rain

 

[kay]

Go for the Logitechs. They're actually better than a lot of the HTIB stuff.

You might want to consider headphones too - the Sennheiser HD-201 is EXCELLENT bang for your buck, it will out-perform systems consting 20 times the price easily!

 

[DTS]

I got a set of the Logitech Z680 5.1 last November when I built my new P.C. And they have been very nice! My wife doesn't quite understand the need for a 505 watt system for the puter, but oh well. Seems to think it bothers her when she's trying to work at her P.C. and I'm playing Half Life and movies and such. It has the control module that is THX, DTS and DD. 188 w Sub, 4 62 w surrounds, 69 w center. Fills and shakes my side of the home office nicely. Got mine from Amazon for $211 shipped, think they were clearing out the older model. Based on mine, I say Logitech. And they were highly reccomended by reviews. I just use with the P.C. and not in a very large area. Have my "Big" one in the living room.

 

[Electric Rain]

Never mind... just... forget what I said about the Z-5300s and the DDTS-100... Combine the two, and it's only about $5 cheaper than the Z-5500s, which, of course, have a digital decoder built-in, which makes the DDTS-100 completely unnecessary.

I read up on the Z-5500s to find that, well, I need them. I will die without them. If I don't get them, a set will soon find me, and destroy me with supersonic waves by playing at full volume and ripping my body apart. They will then continue to haunt my corpse by playing heavy metal music with some guy who can't sing yelling, "YOU SHOULD HAVE BOUGHT UUUS!!! YOU SHOULD HAVE BOUGHT UUUS!!! YOU SHOULD HAVE BOUGHT UUUS!!! YOU SHOULD HAVE BOUGHT UUUS!!!" So, to avoid that fate, I've got to cough up the dough, all at once, rather than buying the decoder and the speakers separately.

To sum up in a much more mature fashion, unlike what you have witnessed in the previous paragraph, I like what I've heard about the Z-5500s, and I firmly think that they're worth giving up the few extra features the DDTS-100 offers, for the huge improvement the Z-5500s sport over the Z-5300s. How 'bout ya'll?

P.S. DTS, just so you know, the Z-5500s and the Z-680s have very little difference between eachother. The 5500's don't use speaker wire, they use pre-attached RCA cables, which is probably the only disadvantage they have against the Z-680s. The control module has been improved on the Z-5500's, and the sub is larger. Other than those minor differences, (though some consider the difference between the subs to be far from minor) the two models are essentially the same.

 

[Electric Rain]

Sorry to double-post, but I just thought of something. It was a bit childish of me to completely disregard the 5300s just because of higher numbers. Now given, the 5500s have a much higher wattage output, and according to many many people, they're the ****. However, the 5300s get good responses as well, and I'm sure they will put out enough sound to fill my lil' old game room.

Cons:

5300s: If I decide to bring my system out into my 2000 cubed feet living room, they might not be powerful enough to cover the area. No remote. Control Pod isn't nearly as cool looking.

5500s: As Kay pointed out, I might want to consider headphones. Well, one could say that I have. Because of the fact that I listen to most of my audio when half of my other family members are trying to sleep, I listen to about 75% or more of my audio through headphones. So I'm not a stranger to the concept by any means. However, I would want 5.1, one way or another. Therefore, I'm also going to get set of 5.1 headphones, so I can listen to 5.1 (though it’s ACTUALLY 5.0, but I was never much for subs and bass) at night as well. There is a problem here, however. With the 5500s, the audio decoder is built-in, so I can't decode the audio and send it to my headphones. I'm stuck with just the speakers for encoded audio. Though, I CAN still use the headphones with my computer. With the 5300's, I'll be using Creative's external audio decoder, so I can route the decoded signal to the headphones, or the speakers, thus allowing me to use the headphones with an encoded audio source, such as my Gamecube, PS2, or DVD player as well.

So, the real question is, 5300s or 5500s? I'm having a very hard time deciding... because I usually decide by price, but they’re the same price when you throw in the price of audio decoder to the price of the 5300s. But… I WANT to be able to use the 5.1 headphones. (So don't you audiophiles try and talk me out of it. I hear audio freaks despise surround sound headphones. ) Anyway, I do have a question that might make up my mind, depending on the answer. Would I be able to plug the headphones into the back of the 5500's sub, in place of the 5 speakers, and use that for my audio decoding and amplifying? And also, how much of a difference IS there between the 5300s and the 5500s? If the difference really is that great, I might just be able to live without the 5.1 headphones for my console gaming and DVD watching. Thanks again.

Rain