sound card Q's

[kreater]

im looking to ugrade my sound card to
mad dog prowler:
http://www.maddogmultimedia.com/prod...o/4channel.asp

or the Philips Dynamic Edge 4:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....oryId=cat01053

the only problem is for now i want to use my 2.1 speakers will they work with the 4.1 or will i have to buy all new speakers? any help would be grate, cause my line in died! or something and its time to get a new sound car anyways!

[CornPopz]

Hmm. The Mad Dog card uses the same sound chip that's built-in on my motherboard (mine's just the 5.1 version). It's not too shabby, and I liked having A3D on it. However mine gave me problems with the sound popping and crackling. Things like typing could make my sound pop. But on XP even my Live! card is only a little bit better (sound only pops when my hard drive is loading a game up, etc.)

The Philips card looks equally as strong as the Mad Dog one. In fact, looking at the specs I'm thinking that the Dynamic Edge would be the better of the two.

And no, you shouldn't need to buy new speakers.

And a question.....what OS do you have now, and if you know them, can you list a few system specs? (processor speed and type, RAM, stuff like that)

[kreater]

433mhz
160ram - ill get 512 when i order the new sound card online
xp pro
60gig hd
but thanx for telling me i dont have to buy new speakers! but ima gonna get new ones any ways i did a little searching! and im altec-lansing fan! cause i hade my 2.1 for like 2yrs now and never had any complaints! these are the speakers ima get but!

http://www.thenerds.net/productpage.asp?un=172959&s=1

if anyone says any thing different as to why i shouldnt buy them, then any recommendations for 4.1 speakers under 70$
thanx in advance

[kreater]

my bad, my speaker choices actually are between the altec-lansing AVS-500B:
http://www.altec-lansing.com/product...=AVS500B&sID=1

and the creative sbs 4.1 450
http://www.americas.creative.com/pro...product=118 2

i believe specs are the same on the speakers, but im not sure anyone know them? and which is better?

[Flyfsh]

I have friends with both sets of the speakers you are looking at. They both sound very good. I believe you would be happy with either.

[curtybob]

Of the cheaper speakers, I actually liked the Logitech Z-640's. The bass is a little deeper, and the cables for the rear channels are about 3 feet longer than the other sets I looked at. If one of your choices has jacks in the back of each speaker (instead of a molded in speaker wire) that would be the set to go with. I have found that almost all of the respected brands can be adjusted to sound okay, but if you can't get the speakers far enough away to make use of the surround effect, then your money is wasted.