$200 to Spend: 2.1 Speakers & Sound Card

Dangman

Dangman

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Hello,

As a gift to himself before he goes to U.S Marine OCS, my little brother want's to get new 2.1 speakers and a good sound card. As noted in the title, his budget is $200 for both the speakers and sound card. I'm covering the tax and shipping so that's not part of the $200 budget. Though he does have Amazon Prime.

Gaming audio and music audio quality are both equally important to him. Unfortunately I don't know too much about speakers and sound cards so I'm turning to this forum for help. So far from the research I've done, I've put together a tentative list:
$120 - Swan M10 2.1 Speakers
$30 - Asus Xonar DG 5.1 Channels PCI Sound Card
---
$150 plus tax and shipping

Other notes:
- He definitely wants a sub hence the 2.1 setup.
- He wants to avoid Creative as much as possible due to him hearing about the Daniel_K incidents from me.

If there is any more info that you need, feel free to ask.

Thank you in advance!
 
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I would not recommend the swan M10. I had a set and the built in amplifier died in less than a month. Some people have not had any issues. While the set worked they did sound good, no low frequencies though. The .1 part is more of a mid woofer than a sub woofer.
As mentioned above the dayton combo seems well received in that price range with a sub.
 
Mabu said:
While I haven't personally used this combo myself, it seems to get a ton of recommendations in this forum, so I'll be the first to throw it out there:

Dayton Audio T-Amp and B652 Speaker Bundle - $58.00
Dayton Audio SUB-80 8" HT Series 80 Watt Powered Subwoofer - $100.00

Looks like that sub is currently out of stock, so here's a comparable one from BIC:

BIC AMERICA V-80 8" 100 Watt Powered Subwoofer - $98

That sound card should be fine.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the recommendations! Out of curiosity would those same speakers and subwoofer be a good use for use with a HDTV?
Snufykat said:
The .1 part is more of a mid woofer than a sub woofer.
Click to expand...
Hmm, learn something new everyday.
 
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I see no reason to invest in a sound card given your budget. If your budget were three times higher, I might be inclined to suggest a sound card/DAC/other interface.
 
phide said:
I see no reason to invest in a sound card given your budget. If your budget were three times higher, I might be inclined to suggest a sound card/DAC/other interface.
Click to expand...

+1, in your price range you should put every penny into the speakers.
 
phide said:
I see no reason to invest in a sound card given your budget. If your budget were three times higher, I might be inclined to suggest a sound card/DAC/other interface.
Click to expand...

SirMaster said:
+1, in your price range you should put every penny into the speakers.
Click to expand...

Would that $30 sound card be whole lot better than the onboard Realtek audio? If so, it might be worth it to my bro to get it.
 
Depends. There are a multitude of on-board solutions out there: some are quite bad and some are quite decent. For the most part, though, anything made in the last few years is probably fairly decent and $30 is unlikely to get anything beyond 'fairly decent'.
 
phide said:
Depends. There are a multitude of on-board solutions out there: some are quite bad and some are quite decent. For the most part, though, anything made in the last few years is probably fairly decent and $30 is unlikely to get anything beyond 'fairly decent'.
Click to expand...

From what he tells me, he's not a fan of the onboard audio of his motherboard and noted that his old Creative SB Blaster Live! (Can't remember which one) card provided significantly better audio than his onboard audio before it died. So I'm guessing that the $30 Asus Xonar should be provide above "fairly decent" for him.
 
I second Mabu's suggestion. I think for $200 for everything, that seems like a decent setup.

If one wants to upgrade later, a reviewer named joeljoel1947 gives a nice way to upgrade the bookshelf using some Silverflute drivers and a capacitor for the crossover.

Check here for his comments (go to the 2nd page of the comments list to find his post)

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=300-652
 
I too would recommend staying away from the M10's. Far too cheap. Get the M50's if you really want Swans. Otherwise the above recommendation should be excellent.
 
I've been more than satisfied with my B652s and can certainly recommend them.
 
I'd probably swap the B652 for BIC America DV62si if you can spare a little extra cash.
 
I have the swam m10's and a xonar DG and its the best bang for your buck. But make sure you get a nice pair of headphones too :)
 
Thank you all for the advice.

My bro and I are gonna mull over the recommendations for the next few weeks or so and then decide what to buy.
 
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