Best 5.1 speakers for a gamer not on a budget

um. that is so wide open a question it is not even funny.

5.1 for what? gaming? do you mean one of the PC systems or are you serious?

I can point you towards anything from $100 to $1,000,000.
 
On a related subject, best under $400? My Altec Lansing 641 died a few years ago and I've never found anything worth replacing them with. Everything now seems to be all about loud and boomy, not quality.
 
You could always take the Abbey Road approach. That'd be five B&W 800Ds, dual-driven by Classé CA-M400 mono amps with the ASW855 sub. I think Revenge of the Sith was mixed in one of Abbey Road's rooms with this setup. Approximately, what, $100,000? Maybe $120,000.

Surely your budget isn't quite $120,000...right?

EDIT: Ah, I guess it was only ROTS's score that was mixed at Abbey Road. That figures.
 
spaceman said:
um. that is so wide open a question it is not even funny.

5.1 for what? gaming? do you mean one of the PC systems or are you serious?

I can point you towards anything from $100 to $1,000,000.
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For gaming and listening to music.
 
the z5500's can be had cheap and would be ideal in a smaller area. you could of course get better with actual home theater gear, but that is really entirely up to you.

it's hard to say when you say no budget..
 
Unless you really are okay with spending a million, we really need a budget. I went with a Marantz amp (which was ~450 or so, but it was my previous HT amp that I upgraded from so I didn't purchase it new specifically for my PC) and the X-LS 5.1 system from av123.com.

But something like that will run you somewhere between 1000 and 1500+, depending on what you do for a receiver and whether or not they still have any leftover X-LS in stock (I'm guessing not, but I haven't checked lately). If I had it to do over again I'd probably also skip the X-Sub and go with a 10" from Hsu.

But if you're talking about best 5.1 PC system then that's something entirely different. I'd probably try the Logitech Z-5500.

If you're talking somewhere in between you can do the Athena Micra and Panasonic XR-57 for ~750, potentially much less if you can wait for sales.
 
Nicolaskl said:
Unless you really are okay with spending a million, we really need a budget. I went with a Marantz amp (which was ~450 or so, but it was my previous HT amp that I upgraded from so I didn't purchase it new specifically for my PC) and the X-LS 5.1 system from av123.com.

But something like that will run you somewhere between 1000 and 1500+, depending on what you do for a receiver and whether or not they still have any leftover X-LS in stock (I'm guessing not, but I haven't checked lately). If I had it to do over again I'd probably also skip the X-Sub and go with a 10" from Hsu.

But if you're talking about best 5.1 PC system then that's something entirely different. I'd probably try the Logitech Z-5500.

If you're talking somewhere in between you can do the Athena Micra and Panasonic XR-57 for ~750, potentially much less if you can wait for sales.
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yup.
 
dagon11985 said:
Alright. I guess $100 to $200 is my budget.
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Ok, uhhh, well that is real different. "Not on a budget," generally means you are willing to spend quite a bit. $100-200 is rather budget. For that price, you are limited to computer speakers, you aren't going to get modular separates in that range (at least not ones worth getting). In that range you are probably looking at something like the Logitech G51. Not Logitech's top of the line, but then you can't have those in the under $200 range.

Whenever you are buying something, always have a budget planned out. Even if the budget is outrageously high, still have a figure that is the max you are willing to spend so that you know what is and isn't in your range.

You also kinda need to alter your definitions of things. For pretty much anything in computers, $100-200 is a significant budget. That won't get you the best anything, except maybe keyboard or mouse. So if that is your idea of having a high budget, you need to rethink things.

There's nothing wrong with having a low budget, you should only spend as much money as you are comfortable with on your computer, however don't set your goals as having the best, but spending very little.

In the case of audio, it costs about $300 to get the best all-in-one surround computer speaker setup you can find. However that is fairly low end in the audio world, below what you'd find in most home theatres. For somewhere around $500, you can start getting a decent home-theatre-in-a-box which is a step up. Around about $1200 (maybe even as low as $1000) you are talking enough to get a modular separate system, meaning separate receiver and speakers. You can, of course, keep going up from there to just about any amount you want to spend.

So if $200 is your max, you are looking at computer speakers. If you want home theatre gear, you need to up the budget a lot. For really good stuff, it is easy to spend a whole bunch. I spent about $800 just for my subwoofer, for example, and you can find them way more expensive than that.
 
either a refurb z5500 set (which will still be slightly over your budget with shipping) or a z5300e IMO.
 
dagon11985 said:
Alright. I guess $100 to $200 is my budget.
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It's hard to get 5.1 system with this budget unless you don't care about the sound. But this budget will be good enough to get you a set of nice 2.1 system such as Swan M10, klipsch promedia 2.1, AEGO M, etc.
 
LOL he goes from no budget to $100-$200. Your not going to get anything great with that price range.
 
My Kiplish Promedia 5.1 Ultra's still running like a champ.... It is too bad they no longer make that setup.
 
simon741 said:
LOL he goes from no budget to $100-$200. Your not going to get anything great with that price range.
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Alright.

People wanted a budget, I provided them with an arbitrary number.
I wasn't aware that quality -gaming- speakers cost so much.

I did not state that I wanted a home threater or anything that spectacular, and for some reason I've my doubts that most gamers shell out half a grand for speakers.

I 'could' shell out a grand, but that seems a bit like overkill and I'd likely cross the line of diminishing returns.
 
Who said most gamers shell out half a grand for speakers?

I'd say in the 5.1 audio world diminishing returns starts to kick in around $1500 and doesn't really get into full force until you hit about $3500 or so. It's definitely not at $200 though.
 
dagon11985 said:
I 'could' shell out a grand, but that seems a bit like overkill and I'd likely cross the line of diminishing returns.
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Not for 5 speakers and a subwoofer. Diminishing returns for speakers is between $400-$800 EACH, depending on source material and your own sense of "good sound" (fyi it's not how much your windows rattle)

My suggestion would be to try out some speakers either at a store, or have em shipped to you directly. Do it from both ends of the spectrum. Try out those scrubby Z-5500's, and also try out some high end. Many speaker companies stand by their speakers 110% and will even pay return shipping if they don't satisfy you.
 
With more expensive speakers it becomes very obvious if the game was made for 200$ speaker systems or if they were more ambitious and went for the movie quality sound. Call of Duty 4 for example sounds very dull and flat compared to Crysis which really has high quality sound, but when I heard Call of Duty 4 at a friends house who had much cheaper computer speakers it sounded almost identical to my system, so I guess they not only do focus group testing to optimize the gameplay to a certain audience but also mix the sound to match their speaker systems.
 
Just to chime in...I ALWAYS wear headphones when gaming. I play FPS games almost exclusively. Speakers for games are great for the sound depth and stage they create. However, almost every person I game with uses headphones exclusively for gaming.
 
dagon11985 said:
I 'could' shell out a grand, but that seems a bit like overkill and I'd likely cross the line of diminishing returns.
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No, not really. If that was the case, well then you'd probably see gaming speakers marketed for home theatre. The point of diminishing returns depends on a lot of things, not the least of which being the individual listening and how sensitive/trained their ears are and how much they care about sound vs cost.

However, I imagine that just about everyone would find that a good home theatre setup sounds significantly better than a PC setup. The main things you'd be likely to get out of a decent HT (like $1200) setup over PC speakers:

1) Better bass. PC speaker systems have pretty small subwoofers. Though there are things you can do to get better bass out of small boxes, there are limits. The logitech speakers are on the upper end, having a 10" sub, however it is in a really tiny enclosure. You'd probably find that a 10" HT sub would give better bass, simply because it'd be in a better enclosure. Also, the bass is hindered by the fact that the sub has to produce some pretty high bass frequencies due to the fact the satellites are so small.

2) For the same reason, you'll get better stereo definition out of HT speakers. The idea that all bass in non-directional is false. The lower the frequency the harder a time the ear has localizing it, generally speaking, however that doesn't mean that there's a magic cutoff. Also, the bass that you have to direct to the sub is pretty high with speakers as small as they have, so it does get well in to the range you can localise. With larger 2-way bookshelf speakers, you'll have lower frequencies coming form the main speakers, which gets you a better sound field.

3) Better sound definition. Another problem with the one small speaker design is that it really isn't that good over a wide range of frequencies. Depending on the size you make it and the materials it is built from will influence what range, but there just really isn't any way a 3" speaker can be good from ~150Hz (not sure precisely where the crossover is) all the way up to 20,000Hz. With a 2-way speaker with a bigger mid/bass driver and a smaller tweeter, you'll get a much better result.

4) Less distortion. Speakers, being mechanical devices, have distortion that raises as volume does. The more they move, the less close to ideal that movement is. So, when you have little speakers doing a lot of work, they'll have higher distortion than more powerful speakers doing less work. Nothing extreme, I don't mean that the Logitech speakers will sound all crappy (they wouldn't sell if they did), just that they are likely to be, well, slightly I guess "fuzzier" might be the word when driven to high levels than HT speakers.


Basically, it should give an all around more realistic, pleasing, sound. Now that doesn't mean you have to go that way, plenty of people are quite happy with computer speakers and you can save yourself a bunch of money doing it, just don't confuse yourself and think it is as good as it gets, or necessairily high end. 5.1 computer sound is no different than 5.1 theatre sound, so the same kind of rules apply and thus the same equipment is valid. If you get higher priced speakers (in particular the speakers make a difference) and other components, you are going to get better sound.

You are right that it starts to get to be diminishing returns, but I'd say it is quite a bit above what you are talking. There's a major difference between a little satellite speaker and a nice bookshelf speaker and a nice floor standing speaker.
 
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