pio

Logitech made quite a few mistakes in those setups, but alas....they're "gaming" setups, not exactly "audiophile". Completely different worlds there. For a gaming speaker setup, they're fine. The reason why the smaller sub "hits harder" is due to enclosure tuning, the z625 is tuned higher than the z5500 is. The z5500 is tuned, I'm guessing, right around 40Hz or so from my last listen to a set. The z625 is going to be tuned closer to the 50-60Hz range. Higher bass frequencies "hit harder" with less power, so they sound "boomier" for music and gaming. Lower frequencies require more power generally. That's why a home theater subwoofer, like a 15" that extends down to say 18Hz, probably has a 500w-1000w RMS amplifier attached (real 1000w RMS). It's just a different realm of audio than what I'm used to. They're fine for their cost and their intended use. I wouldn't do any critical listening on them without seriously fine tuning their EQ and crossovers, but for just blasting some music or enjoying explosions in a game......they'll work great for that.

Cool setup for Logitech stuff. I promise you, that's nowhere NEAR 1500w RMS, if it was you'd need a dedicated circuit. Logitech severely overrates their equipment. You probably have about 200w RMS in total or so between those two systems, as a more realistic estimate. Wattage doesn't always equal output, you can get loud with 1w in the right enclosure with the right drivers. However wattage does usually equal LOW lows on subwoofers (also enclosure and driver dependent). Either way, should be a boomy setup. Definitely consider a sound card for the EQ and crossover adjustments it provides for you, it'll help clean up the sound some. If you're going optical, well nevermind. Optical is optical regardless if its onboard or a sound card. If you enjoy the Logitechs, that's what matters.

So in the true "Pio" fashion, I just couldn't leave well enough alone........ I ordered to complete my $7.99 thrift store subwoofer the following: Fosi Audio 300w desktop subwoofer amplifier Monoprice banana plugs New terminal plate And I also bought some wood, glue, and screws. I figured this would be more "proper" than having a wire hanging out of the port like I had it. I also had it hooked up to my car amplifier, and that's just not right either.....hence buying the amplifier. So far, this is my progress, and I'm into the project now about $120-130 (after tax) for a $7.99 thrift store find. -_-

*Grumbles loudly about USPS* This was in my mailbox today. It was empty. SUPPOSED to have my DIN5 to PS2 adapter in there for the K6 rig that's due to arrive in a few days. *grumbles louder* In other news, I FINALLY receieved a pair of 24 pin to 20+4 pin PSU extensions, so I should be able to get the Socket A rigs functional very soon. That was the only piece missing (and the case that needs repaired). I also have a second Socket 939 rig to build still, everything's here for that. Also have another rig to build for my kiddo for school, that needs to be finalized and built. Just ugh. On TOP of all my little projects, kiddo is now being homeschooled by yours truly for 5-6 hours a day. I'm losing my mind over here guys! It's worth it though, or so they say. I'll have updates soon, but due to recent schedule changes because of the schooling, things will take me a little longer to get put together since I'm (mostly) limited to weekends now.

My machines are already trying to force Windows 11 in the updates section, it just says my machine isn't capable of running it. Granted, I can't actually see it since I have TPMS or whatever its called disabled. So I can't say 100%, it might still be an "option". It's still annoying that its even a thing though. The point being here, updates were NOT forced on Windows 8.1, 8, 7, Vista, XP etc. They were suggested, but never forced. Microsoft claimed when 10 was released, that the updates being forced on 10 were simply because Windows 10 was the last version of Windows they'd be releasing. Microsoft lied. Who's to say that "no need to panic" isn't just another lie? And what happens when an update BREAKS your computer? It's forced, so you're forced to have a broken computer because Microsoft wanted you to have this broken update? That's not okay.

It might force people to go outside. Gasp! Shock! We can only hope that would happen. Too many people with their noses glued in their phones all day.

It only really makes sense according to their original plan. They originally stated that Windows 10 would be "the last version of windows". Their promise there, not mine. With Windows 11 being released, FORCING users to update is no longer something that makes sense, since they now have a new OS to force people onto for up to date service. So why are we forcing updates when they're just going to cut service to 10 eventually now like they always do when an OS hits EOL? To me, this is just more bad business habits from Microshaft. We complained about the forced updates when 10 was released and their answer was because 10 would be the last OS. Their fix was allowing us to "defer" updates for a few weeks. Now....it just doesn't make any sense. Why are we forcing updates on an OS that will eventually hit EOL just like every past OS that did not have forced updates?

You know, the thing about it being modular is a good point. Why CAN'T GPU manufacturers make GPU's modular? Want more VRAM? Buy more GDDR5 VRAM or GDDR6 or whatever we're up to now, slap it on there with a socket. Want more GPU horsepower, toss an upgraded GPU in the socket. Easy peasy just like a CPU / system RAM. Would be nice if GPU manufacturers would do that. Lots of things would be nice..... -_- Video was good. I think I've seen it before, but a classic nontheless.

Good luck with the ssd. I too have recently killed an ssd from corruption. Luckily mine was just a 120gb adata, but a drive loss is still a drive loss. It won't keep me from doing ssd's, but maybe look into older types of ssd's? I forgot the type, but I picked up some old hp 64gb ssd's that seem to be a lot more robust as far as using on old rigs. The setup is looking great!

I think you're right on both points. Psu definitely, but having a little more room for heat disappation never hurts either. Glad you're enjoying the sa300. Sounds like a great amp on paper. I'm currently working on scoring a fosi audio 300w desktop sub amp for my setup. I'm not sure how fosi is, but I only really need 50w. Obviously I'm not going to see a real 300w out of it, but 50w should be doable.

Dang you're right on the bluetooth thing, derp. Coulda sworn that one had BT. I've still been debating on buying one of those anyway, but yeah good point on the BT. Need something with BT for the parents first, and I really don't have room in the budget to be buying personal stuff right now after spending so dang much already in 2022. So yeah, you were probably feeding at most 30-35w per channel to your speakers which want 15-75w. It's "enough", but only for nearfield listening, which I don't blame you if you want to jam out at times. You're probably closer to 60w x2 on your speakers with the SA300 at 6ohm. Definitely a much happier place. I usually try to overpower if I can, but these little T amps are just so freaking adorable and awesome, can't help but enjoy them for their size. More power available always means the power is cleaner (well 9 times out of 10 anyway).

Okay cool, yeah that makes sense from what I knew about the Lepai and Daytons. 24v PSU's tend to bring these lower end audio chips to life a little better. I will be in the market actually for a Q5 Pro or Dayton DTA2.1 here probably next month. I was only partially kidding above lol. My parents are moving into their new house, and I have some Dayton outdoor 6.5" speakers to mount up above in their back patio for outdoor music. I was actually looking at those two specifically due to their subwoofer capabilities to add onto the system later. Bluetooth of course is a must for this type of location and build. I doubt they'll ever use a subwoofer on their back patio, but you never know and figured it'd be better to have the option and not need it.

If you decide to sell that Q5 Pro..... The SA300 does look to be a lot better. I've always believed that more power available on hand is always a good thing for clarity, and I think your experience just kind of shows that. The Q5 Pro is fine for near field listening at low volume and power levels, but by all means more power definitely cleans up the sound. Glad you found an amp you're happy with. My SMSL AD18 paired with the Micca MB42X's have been nothing short of fantastic for the budget. It's not the cleanest sounding thing at high volume, but for a PC setup it's great. I believe mine was rated at something like 80w x2 at 8ohm, however I really doubt it goes anywhere near that since my Micca's still want more. The Q5 Pro I think was 40w x2? Your new SA300 is what, 80w x2 as well right? Quick question, have you thought about attempting to use a bigger PSU for the Q5 Pro and compare it with the stock PSU? I know that has been a complaint on a lot of the Dayton and Lepai T amps. Haven't seen that mentioned as often on SMSL products, but I'd imagine it'd be similar.

My prayers and good thoughts are coming your way. I wish nothing but the best for your mom and sister, and the rest of your family during this time. Maybe one day we'll see you around again. Maybe not. Take care brother. We all love you (no homo). I do hope to one day see a more happy post from you returning. But if not, just know we care about you. Very sad to see you go, folding around here just won't be the same. Just remember, YOU are the reason I joined here BWG. I wouldn't have even known about EHW if it weren't for you and your constant badgering of me to start folding for EHW. Now.....I'm nonstop folding on my team rig at minimum. YOU did that. I'll bet others can say the same.

Correct, I kinda went off trying to over explain earlier. Thing is though, if he's going to use digital outputs, why use a DAC at all? Just use the z5500 DAC built in by running optical or coax to it. I'm sure the z5500 DAC is better than onboard audio at least. But yes, you're right still, that an external DAC would benefit headphones usage too and it MIGHT be better than the z5500 built in DAC, I haven't used a z5500 set in years so I forget. However a sound card "could" be more useful for the speakers as it would be more capable of coloring the sound through EQ'ing and crossovers (sound card driver software). Most external DAC's just pass straight sound through without coloring. That's all I was getting at above.

Just remember, if the data doesn't exist in 3 separate places at one time it doesn't exist. I forget who said that originally, but good words to live by. I'm guilty of not doing it myself, but meh. It's not like I can't recover things off a RAID array. Anything on my PC isn't really THAT important anyway. I'd be crushed, absolutely. But I'd still get up the next morning.

Got one of those tricks handy for Brave? At the article - Sigh. This is just getting tiresome at this point.

Hey, if you want somebody to review laptops..... hint hint, nudge nudge. (j/k, I just like playing with shiny things) Nah, seriously though its an absolute shame they went under. This is a pretty big hit for enthusiast forums in general. Yeah, it was about laptops, but a LOT more people use laptops than desktops honestly. I can't imagine it was for lack of traffic, shoot I visited them pretty frequently myself. They were regularly linked back to on other places too. You know they had traffic. I'm not HUGE into laptops myself either, but I'm sure we've all been on their site. *shrugs Sucks to be them, EHW is where its at anyway. Nobody else does the like E's sites do.

So that new case I bought from newegg, shipped and sold by newegg, arrived broken. I can't comment on their customer service as I'm just going to glue the stupid thing and be done with it. I've tried RMA'ing cases before with them and they've claimed user error even though you just opened the dang box. Soooooo yeah, seems like they really haven't gotten much better lately. But again, I cannot comment for sure as a busted bit of plastic on a $40 case really isn't worth my hassle when I can just superglue the thing. Still upset with them though that at LEAST 50% of my orders the last few years have arrived broken. Ugh. Guess its back to ebay. I swear ebay'ing is a disease though for me.

@Storm-Chaser if you're actually wanting a sound card, the Xonar DX, DSX, or Essence would all be fantastic options for an actual sound card (PCIe). Looks like on ebay anyway, the Essence is about $95, DSX is about $70, and the DX is about $30. The DSX and DX are both a little bit older but should still function fantastically. The Essence I believe is a little bit newer? You really can't go wrong with a Xonar sound card. You'll have to compare the differences yourself, but for JUST getting good sound out of 5.1 channels, even the cheaper DX will do a great job. It's more a matter of extra features from what I've noticed. If you're looking for an external DAC, Schiit and SMSL both make really good DAC's. I'm happy with my SMSL AD18 but its also got a speaker amp in it too though, and headphones amp. You don't really need the speaker amp part of that, so I couldn't recommend it for your setup. But they do make other DAC's that would work with digital or analogue outputs. The thing that a DAC would have over a sound card in this instance would be a headphones amp in a lot of them. That really would be a useful addition if you use cans regularly. Sound cards SOMETIMES have a headphones amp, but if you want better you still have to buy a new sound card or an external DAC anyway. You can of course use both a sound card and a DAC. Sound card IS a DAC on its own since DAC = digital to analogue converter, but usually external DAC's have better amps built in for headphones (and / or speakers). Knowing ONLY about your z5500 set, I'd say sound card (Xonar is my favorite obviously here). However if you DO use headphones regularly, an external DAC / amp with digital outputs (to hook the speakers up) might be a better option. I do think a Xonar would help the speakers more though. So really, it depends on your usages. You CAN also just hook those z5500's up via optical or coax digital off the onboard audio and get the same sound as you would a DAC since the z5500's become the DAC using a digital input to them. So you CAN just run a coax or optical cable to the z5500's and get "best sound". A sound card would simply offer more customization to the sound since the sound card would be what's converting the signal to analogue. TLDR: Sound card = analogue outputs (since onboard has digital already you wouldn't use SC's digital outs). Can color the sound (good thing). DAC = Digital out from PC, usually has headphones amps, can output 5.1 analogue out on some. Probably will not color the sound much. Sound card gets my vote since the speakers themselves COULD use a tad bit of coloring / EQ'ing which a DAC will not do for you. Or you can just run them digitally and see how they sound as is. If they're underwhelming THEN add a sound card. If you want headphones amping for game sessions, go for a DAC with a headphones amp built in....you'd still want to use digital to the speakers so the speakers will sound the same. Sorry for long post

Dude, just because I have extra old junk from my little projects, I've decided to build a whole second Socket 939 rig just for music with my Xonar DG in it. That's how much I loved the sound from the Xonar.

Cool, looks like my 14TB WDC drives aren't too terribly bad for that usage according to their charts. Good to know!

As others have stated, you really can't go wrong going digital. A digital signal is a digital signal afterall. Schiit products are absolutely fantastic, SMSL makes some great stuff too. A DAC absolutely would work as that's what you'd be using the sound card for. Sound cards CAN be nice themselves, it really depends on what you're trying to accomplish. I've noticed on my setup, when I use pure digital outs to my SMSL, it sounds great. I've noticed however too, that if I use my Xonar DG (old PCI card), that it really colors the sound and brightens everything up very nicely, and makes my speakers not sound quite so boring anymore. However, that's not how its "supposed" to sound either. I've noticed with my Creative X-Fi Xtreme Music that it colors the sound in a different way, really brings out the midrange of my speakers, and it adds in some fake surround effects on its own by default. So, just from my own personal experience, the sound card of choice will also color your sound to a certain degree as well. So, to properly answer your question, there really is no proper answer. Digital audio is digital audio and you won't get much better than that. However using analogue inputs WILL sound different, and it might actually be easier for games and other applications to use all 6 channels you have there if you use a sound card. Personally, if I was going for a sound card again in a modern rig, I'd buy a Xonar of some flavor. I really REALLY like my Xonar DG, like a lot, even though I normally use all digital. Xonar sound cards DO offer you proper crossover controls using the analogue outputs, so you'd use "6ch direct" mode on the back of the speakers and run the 3.5mm analogue cables to it. I'm not sure about other cards, my Creative cards don't seem to come with crossover options or functional EQ's. I thought that was a pretty nice feature on the Xonar, and proper crossovers could allow you to fine tune that z5500 set to sound even better.

Good news today, and I guess an update kinda sorta. The first Socket 939 rig is now 100% complete! Specs: Asus A8N SLI Opteron 180 @ 3.0GHz / 1.0GHz HT Link, 1.52v 4x1GB Corsair XMS DDR400 @ 200MHz, 2.5-3-3-6-2T, 2.85v *(939 controller only allows 333 and lower dividers with 4 sticks)* Sapphire HD5870 eVGA 600BQ Zalman CNPS 9500 Lamptron 6ch fan controller (new addition) Creative X-Fi Xtreme Music (new addition) TP Link Archer T4 Wifi Card ZIP 250 drive Floppy drive DVDRW + Lightscribe (SATA) 64GB HP SSD 2TB Seagate 2.5" Custom painted and windowed Rosewill Challenger case Generic RGB LED strips set to green Yate Loon DS12H intakes, DS12L exhausts Thermaltake 12v cig lighter / ashtray (or cup holder) Made a couple new additions. Swore at it a lot because of the stupid molex pins falling out causing a short. Went through 3 sound cards trying to find one that worked. Finally, I'm happy with this build! Biggest difference between last time I said it was done and now is the sound card and fan controller. Due to the extensions problems I've been facing, next build is going to be the second 939 build with G92 SLI and 8GB RAM in it. Part of why I changed fan controllers in this one, these Lamptron controllers stick out too far to fit behind the door in the G7 case I have for the second build. So I had to use this "slider" style fan controller there. I might, MIGHT attempt to build it tonight after kiddo goes to bed, we'll see how I'm feeling. I'm just glad this one's 100% now. So now it can be added to my shelf with the Phenom, Thuban, and FX rigs. I still want to add sound cards to those rigs, but meh.....the older rigs REALLY needed sound cards because onboard sucks. At least with the later ones the onboard sound is tolerable. Anyway, onto finished pictures!

I can't count how many times I've gotten the run around, not only with newegg but manufacturers too, and other sellers like Amazon. Seller says to go to the manufacturer. The manufacturer says to go to the seller. Nobody wants to actually warranty their dang products anymore. It sucks. I've been doing MOST of my buying on ebay as of lately. Usually you can find the manufacturers selling their own gear there too. That's been going over relatively well for me, moreso than newegg luck of the draw. Will definitely be more weary buying anything from NE anymore. I too have been buying from them since the early early 2000's, definitely have spent 10's of thousands with them. Just ordered an open box case last week from them, let's see how that goes. EDIT: I don't even really know what a proper answer would be to this kind of a problem either. We probably need consumer protection laws in place, and a way for the consumer to be able to follow through with a lawsuit if it were required, without needing thousands of dollars lawyers. Something like that would help. We already have that in place kind of with the BBB, but businesses usually just ignore it anyway. There's laws already on the books, but nobody can afford lawyers and you lose if you represent yourself most of the time. I mean really, as is, there is no recourse for the consumer if a company decides to scam you....even if its a legitimate company. What we really need are companies that actually care about their customers. That right there would help. Newegg USED to be one of those companies. It's a shame how they've turned out.