Creative 5500 Digital Speakers Questions ...

[orgasmo]

Hi guys,

the first question is; are they any good? they seem under powered, but i only need them round a small desk for games so i presume their not any more under powered than the other small creative sets (which are fine for my needs).

The second question is in regards to the External Decoder, does anyone have a close up shot of the inputs, i specifically need to know if it has a headphone socket on the decoder so i dont have to keep going round the back of my PC to plug in my headphones when it gets late and other people are in bed.

cheers

[orgasmo]

its ok i found someone else asking the same question on another forum; the answers NO!!!

how lame

i decided to go for a top notch Sony home cinema kit with duel optical input and have my TV/DVD player and my PC hooked up to it all ... should be sweet. The whole setup will be silver, even the Sky+ box im robbing from the parents down stairs

[Enverex]

Sorry to say, but the Sony (cinema speaker systems, the small ones) and such systems you see in Currys and other places aren't good either, they are just targetted at the PCWorld user types who don't really care about the sound quality...

[orgasmo]

i was thinking that myself, however i have asked for some tech specs on the speakers ranges and the power is already plenty for my situation. Worst that can happen is that i send it back cus it sucks

[Spud1]

i would avoid the sony ones compeltely, my dad has one (a DAV500s i think) and tho its power rating is high (600w i think) its not very good at all. Compared with my £250 Sharp a/v reciever and speakers its terrible. poor bass and underwhelming sound. i would seriously suggest you go to somewhere like curries or richer sounds and listen to the system before you buy it, the power ratings are very misleading

[DaftpuNk]

must've bean PMPO rather than RMS wattage

[orgasmo]

thanks guys, i'll go have a good look around, looks like i might need to replace my TV

[Rythmic]

Bit of a warning Orgamso - unless you're using a Nforce for sound, you will not get surround sound with these! There is no mutli channel analog in. You'd have to spend out on the 5700 if you need the decoder as well.

Don't believe it has a headphone port either - it's really designed for consoles, not PCs. You might be better upgrading your current speakers with something like their DDTS100 decoder - http://uk.europe.creative.com/produc...t.asp?prod=569 - which has dual headphone outs, or getting yourself a proper receiver box from somewhere link richer sounds. Theres a yamaha one on their site for 150 quid: http://www.richersounds.co.uk/index....l.php&p=301476

[BlackSheep]

Originally posted by Rythmic
Bit of a warning Orgamso - unless you're using a Nforce for sound, you will not get surround sound with these! There is no mutli channel analog in. You'd have to spend out on the 5700 if you need the decoder as well.

Don't believe it has a headphone port either - it's really designed for consoles, not PCs. You might be better upgrading your current speakers with something like their DDTS100 decoder - http://uk.europe.creative.com/produc...t.asp?prod=569 - which has dual headphone outs, or getting yourself a proper receiver box from somewhere link richer sounds. Theres a yamaha one on their site for 150 quid: http://www.richersounds.co.uk/index....l.php&p=301476

The other benefit of having nforce for sound is that you can plug your headphones in permanently at the back and just enable/disable digital/analogue in drivers when you want to mute digital and have headphones only (you don't get the benefit of digital out, but unless you have very very nice headphones I don't think you'll notice the difference).

[Enverex]

Er, people, power rating does not equal quality. A 7000RMS system is obviously very loud and can really pump out some power, but it doesn't mean that it isn't going to sound like rubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishe.

Always check the rating though to make sure it is in RMS, not PMPO. Is it is in PMPO then they have something to hide.