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Sound Cards & Speakers
All Cards and speakers were tested on this computer,
P III 1 GHz Coppermine with Advanced Cache Transfer
512 MB of PC-800 RIMM RDRAM
Visiontek Xtasy GeForce 4 TI 4600 128 MB. DDR
Dual 45 Gig Ultra ATA 100 Hard Drive with controller cards
12X Max. Var. DVD-Rom with Decoder
8X 4X 32X CD-RW
Sound Blaster Live Digital
HK 595 Speakers and powered sub woofer
Samsung SyncMaster 19 inch 955 DF .20 Dot Pitch
DSL 1 Meg Modem
Netgear DS-104 Dual Speed Hub for my LAN
Speakers
Altec Lansing 251 Amplified Speaker System Model 251
With the games that I play on-line, I needed one of these type of speaker systems. It is very important to be able to hear when someone is trying to sneak up behind you. With this 5.1 speaker system, I can do just that. The system includes four, 3 inch full range Satellite speakers, one 3 inchfull range center speaker and a 5.25 long throw powered sub-woofer. The total power is 90 watts. Just right for my computer. (See above) The sound is unbelieveably clear and clean. You can also play DVD's sound thru these babies too. It is just like being in the theater. This is a must get for any hardcore gamer. Plkus the price is really low too. The whole package only costs me $89.99 before taxes. You will not believe the sound you get from this system, for the really low price. It was very easy to install too. Everything is color coded, and the plugs will only fit their own jack. It is almost fool proof.
Harman/Kardon HK 595 Speakers and Powered Sub-Woofer
This is one very nice Three piece speaker setup. The sound that comes from it when I have Microsoft Train Simulator running, will make you think you are in the locomotive as it rolls thru the countryside. The only thing I have a beef about, is the size of the two sound sticks. They are almost a foot tall.
Sound Cards
Sound Blaster Live 5.1 Gamer
When I bought the new speaker system, I needed a new sound card as well. So, I bought the Sound Blaster Live 5.1 Gamer. It is Digital,and the card was easy to install. The setup on the other hand, took quite a while to get it right. I am very good at setting up Pc hardware, and I could not figure what was wrong at first. I called Creative's tech suipport, and they told me both the speakers and sound card were bad. They weren't bad at all. The tech guy, did not enough know how to setup his own card. I am still waiting for the reply to my e-mail I sent them before I even made the phone call. That was over 2 days ago.
Anyway, The sound card and speakers are working fine together now. Love the cool extra programs that come with the card too. The Oozic Player is really nice. It has special music Fx to watch, while the music is playing. And that is just one of those extra programs. The card is worth the $70 I paid for it, even tho it took sometime to get it to work right. If you did buy this card, Save yourself some trouble, install the WDM drivers, and not the VXD drivers for the card. That was the only thing that kept the card from working right. And their tech support did not even know about this.