New speakers or Sound Card - Page 2

Depending how complaint prone your neighbours are obviously. Low frequencies are what bother neighbours usually the most, since they retain more energy while traveling through walls and thus are the most audible (unless your walls are really thin, then higher frequencies will bother too). That being said, even though 5" and 8" monitors are quite full-range-ish, they aren't exactly meant to extend beyond 50-80Hz as they're meant to be coupled with a subwoofer when the application requires one (like movies and games, for instance). You'll always benefit from a separate subwoofer with bookshelf speakers. Your current subwoofer might be only 5.25", but it's also tuned to resonate at a lower frequency so it might actually be more annoying to your neighbour than a pair of 5" monitors. The speakers shouldn't really annoy your neighbours any more than your present set, if you use them equally loud. I would be concerned when you get a 10-12" subwoofer though.

But yeah, expect it to cost a sweet deal more if you want to get higher clarity in the mid and high-ranges in the form of actual speakers, but also want the bass-department to dislocate your jaw. It's going to be about few hundred quids for a sub too.

Then again, when I first got my 8" studio monitors I was like holy crap I'll never need a subwoofer, because I had gotten used to a set of 3" actives in the form of AudioEngine 2 clones, and a 8" subwoofer. But then I got a subwoofer later for the 8" monitors too Hunger grows while you're eating with these things, so you can either settle with some satellite set that's easy to position and set up, or bigger heavier speakers that you might enjoy a lot that are also going to cost a good deal in the longer run. I bet you'll like them anyway, it's more of a question of principle do you want to seek high fidelity or just want a replacement for your current speakers (I don't feel like I'm helping you at all contradicting myself in every other sentence tbh )

If you are a true audiophile then your only option is to save more than $2-300, preferably starting at a minimum of $1000, and start looking at receivers and speakers. If you're looking at that price range ($2-300) and want audiophile sound then you need to only look at quality headphones, soundcard, and possibly a dac. Speaker sets labled specifically for pc use aren't going to be audiophile quality. If you can wait and save money, you can find and buy quality used equipment and be MUCH happier.

That's a silly prerequisite. I consider myself an audio enthusiast yet my both pairs of monitors and headphones cost me under $300 (M-Audio BX5a D2 and Behringer B3031A, AKG K272 HD, Sony XB-500). Price doesn't equal to better quality (although they do usually correlate on the general scale) or a more valid status of "audiophilia".

OP can very well get a pair of $200 active monitors, ditch the necessity of a receiver and save $200-300 (although receivers do contain the DAC and amplification in the same device, eliminating ground loop hums and RFI induction quite well into the signal path and the need for a sound card) and he will very likely be happy with it, maybe add a subwoofer later on. In a budget scenario like this adding a receiver is only really sensible if OP knows some specific pair of passives he fancies, or has a scenario of multiple sources he wants to easily connect to the speakers.

It's up to him what he'd like really. From the ease of surround decoding and avoiding ground loops point of view, a passive set might actually be a very good idea. Unbalanced long connections tend to be slightly finicky and rarely completely quiet in my experience.

What are you using it for? Music/ video/ what quality? What is your Windows audio settings set to? What is your onboard settings set to?
Sometimes quality can be lost or ****ty because of settings, or even the audio/ video player you are using. For instance in your audio settings I don't know what ASUS or Realtek offer for adjusting settings but do you have a Games mode and separate audio mode?

I use this as a happy medium so I don't have to go adjust every setting to differ between games, music, shows, Once I set my settings to sound good for this song it pretty well transfers to whatever else I am doing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Imixg3jrJS8 It is pretty consistent and has ample bass plus fairly clear lyrics ect. From what I've read newer onboard sound is pretty decent, and when I look at current offerings for dedicated sound cards I haven't been too impressed. So maybe I'm guessing your Realtek 892 is decent enough.
If you want value (for headphones) and great audio quality I recommend Sennheiser 201's I LOVE LOVE LOVE these. I am saying this after selling my $200 Sony DJ headphones. Bass does not mean quality and these are f'ing amazing and only like $20. From what it sounds like you might just need to do a bit of tweaking, as you say the music sounds awesome. If games sound a bit off I think adjusting the in game audio settings might be a better option then running out and spending hundreds of dollars on new gear.

I've personally found the stereo to surround virtualizations to make music sound hollow and weird, artificially distant sort of. Games don't sound as weird because they have actual 3D data of the sound sources and don't have to apply any sort of 2D expansion to a source that actually moves on only one axis (stereo). But then again you didn't complain about music performance but games, there I'm completely lost. And it sounds like you might enjoy a set with a bigger subwoofer more than an actual investement in mid-range sound quality (ironically mid-range is most of what we hear though, but to each their own).
Warning: Off-Topic (Click to show)

Well, with active speakers you have to still have a sound card, but as I said a cheap one shouldn't be THAT bad, most on-board ones I've heard newer than AMD 880G are totally fine and not inherently flawed like the run-of-the-mill audiophile will want you to believe, but obviously that's very much dependent on your PSU's ripple and motherboard layout and possibly it's power supply filtering etc etc...

Passive speakers, especially in combination with a 5.1 receiver that takes in optical would be easier to manage without weird ground loop/interference issues from the case or inductance like the aforementioned ones, so yes I'd recommend that. There are some sensibly priced 5.1 kits with a receiver I bet, Onkyo makes some affordable sets at least, might want to ask around more for them, shouldn't run more than $400-500 for a cheap one.
Warning: just me ranting nevermind (Click to show)
Edited by seepra - 11/5/12 at 5:05pm