Speakers going dead, need new ones...

I have been running a set of cheap speakers (free actually) for a while. They are 2.0 (as in no subwoofer). They are starting to die, and the audio quality is terrible.

So I need recommendations for new speakers. Below 300 us dollars is good. Also, should I get a sound card? Or will that not change from onboard sound?

 

I've heard good things about the Creative Gigaworks T40 and T20

 

I have a simple question:

What sound card are you using?

 

I am using the card that came with the Asus p5n32-e sli mobo

I would also like to step up from 2.0 speakers, maybe surround?

 

Logitech's Z-5500's are well within your budget ($268), and still take some beating... certainly with anything costing around the same price
Their G51's are meant to be good too though, and cost 'just' $150
Finally... their [2.1] Z Cinema Advanced ($220) are worth consideration

 

how big s your room? Because below a certain size you wont get any benefit from a surround system.

 

My room is about 10 by 12 feet.

 

I'd go for the 5500s, Surround sound gaming cannot be beat! Also, if your budget supports it, pick up a sound card, i personally noticed a large difference, and it will definitely help with your z5500s, if you buy them of course.

 

recommendations on sound cards?

 

whats your budget?

 

I'm running an Asus Xonar D2 at the moment, I kind of prefer the setup of Creative, it seemed more straightforward, but it's mostly the fact that it's different, I used to run an Audigy 2 ZS, that worked fine on coaxial and analog. The speakers have a dolby setup for music, movies, direct 6 channel, so your computer encodes it for surround, stereo and stereo x2. So they're well setup imo for surround, even if you only have a stereo source.

 

I would go up to 350, but no higher.

 

"350" doesn't tell us enough?
Since you haven't filled in the 'location' section of your User CP, nobody knows where you're from... so 350 what, exactly?

£ (in which case ) US$? AUS$? Sheep/cows/goats (you might from a third world country )?

 

He mentioned that it is US$ in the original post.

 

yeah, it is US$, like Jik said

 

If your going for the logitechs I'm pretty sure they have spdif in which means you could use optical/coxail and use the speaker's decoder. Especially if your plannnig on watching dvds in dts/dolby 5.1.

 

what is spdif?

 

I'm late with a reply... so you may already have found out the answer, 'coz it was certainly easy enough to find.

 

I can thoroughly recommend the Creative T20's if you just want a simple pair of stereo speakers. Really good quality and they don't take up a lot of space.

 

get a decent Hi-Fi amp and speakers, far better VFM and you can use it for other stuff too!

hunt ebay for 2nd hand amps but buy the speakers new (unless you know the guy)- you never know how much they've been thrashed.