New PC Speaker advice... please... ;)

[BlueMagician]

Hello to all..

I've been getting on fine with my Creative Soundworks DTT2500 5.1 surround set for eons (about 6 years IIRC), but the decoder/amp has now decided to give up on me.

I need ideas for a replacement set, and have been looking at the Creative Gigaworks S750 7.1 system. My only concerns are that whilst these beauties seem to get good reviews, they are quite old.

What's out there? Where else should I be looking? 7.1 seems a little overkill, but sounds like fun..


Please feel free to throw advice this way! Of course, I will be needing to replace my archaic SoundBlaster Live card too (yes, the original one.. lol).

Thanks in advance,
S.

[Noni]

X-Fi and Z5500?

Those are popular.

[BlueMagician]

X-Fi and Z5500?

Those are popular.

Thanks..

I've now looked into both the S750 and the Z5500.. These are my thoughts - please feel free to add/disagree:

1. The S750 set only has analogue inputs. Even my 6 year old DTT2500 has SPDIF input and the ole Creative Digital DIN. Doesn't anyone find this a little wierd? How does this _really_ affect overall quality?

2. With newer SoundBlaster cards, how is 5.1 DolbyDigital sound output from games? What performs the encoding/decoding? Would I be able to hook up the Logitech Z5500 set up with SPDIF output from the card, or would I have to use the analogue multichannels again?
(I know with my current SB Live, the SPDIF output only acts as a throughput for DD/DTS streams, and does no processing)

2b. What games actually support 7.1? Would that be transmitted through SPDIF in a way dis/similar to that in (2)?


Sorry for rambling, trying to get this straight in my head..
S.

[Noni]

Just to say, I have no idea. I just know those 2 items are popular.

Sorry mate.

[cotex]

I've got the logitech 680 and the X-Fi and I can't get it past the half way point before someone starts to wonder who's shooting in there or who's hosting the concert. It sounds AWESOME!!!
I'll be getting the 5500's when they come on sale in the states.
Always a need to increase the speed..

tex

[BlueMagician]

Okay, so to thin out my previous post:

What really puts me off the S750's is the lack of Digital connectivity, but this is trivial if Soundblaster cards these days don't output a useful signal from their SPDIF at all times, even when not playing a true 5.1 source?

Can anyone shed any light on this? Would I end up using the analogue connections if a game didn't support 5.1 surround anyways, or do the digital outputs of S/C's these days pass everything though and let the speakers/decoder decide?


S.