Originally Posted by
esde
Thanks for your response.
I have tried a couple of 2.0 & 2.1 speaker setups (connected to my dedicated SoundBlaster soundcard) but the result when gaming was rather overwhelming and a tad unpleasant to my ear. Because my ear homes in on the sound from the closest speaker, it appeared that there were (simplistically) too many varied sounds (music/voice/SFX) emanating from (effectively) a single speaker.
With my current speaker arrangement, it appears to create a generalised sound field in front of me which my ear is quite happy with (& easily discerns individual sound elements), as all of the speakers have their own sound task.
I have a soundbar system for my TV in the lounge, which my ear is still content with at <1m distance but admittedly it was a fairly expensive (for my wallet) one @ c.£700. Although, I appreciate that I will not have the same quality of sound from a budget <£199 soundbar.
Obviously, being seated in front of a possible soundbar at close proximity, one is not trying to 'fill a room' with sound, which is why such needs to be clear/precise at low-medium volumes.
I have desk space aplenty for speakers. I currently have my Creative (T6100) 5.1 speaker set (SW on the floor below the desk) on the desk arrayed in a gentle curve in front of my seating position. The distance from the 2 outermost speakers (notionally rear speakers) is about 1.2m. The distance from my seating location to the (centre) speaker is about 0.8m.
I had intended to 'upgrade' (using the term generously) my speaker set to Creative T6300 to improve (hopefully) the audio quality a tad, as my impending new PC will have a SoundBlaster X-AE5 card.
However, having been led to believe that the audio produced from a sound card connected via optical cable is superior to, analogue cables, the thought occurred to me that as I cannot afford a 5.1 optical system, perhaps a 0.9-1m wide soundbar in front of my monitor could be a solution.
Any/all comments are welcomed.
Apologies for the long response!