logitech z5500 vs creative gigaworks s750

ok i have a load of money and i need some serious speakers for my pc and tv.

My use for these speakers will be
60% films/video tv/ v shows
30%playing games FPS
20% music

i have onboard realtek sound from the asus p5k.

the z 5500 can decode dts and DD, but can the S750? or will i need a sound card? what are the benifti or DTS and DD?

further more the Z5500 are 190 and the S750 are 240 pounds sterlin

plus i have heard the s750 has blow after a couple months usage? any one heard of this?

will i have to get a graphics card. and is DIGital input better than analog?

Thank you

is there anything i should consider for the same price range?

ah thank you. i will prob get the CREATIVE X-FI EXTREME to go with it as it can decode dts and dd. the oem is selling for 30 pounds while the retail is selling for 50 pounds, any reason to get the retail?

the Z-5500 are amazing, clear sound, powerful system. i cant have this spakers with too much volume cause my house start vibrating lol. i think the Z-5500 is the way to go

digital for music and movies, analog for games.

300 pounds max!! what can your recommend?

correct me if i am wrong, but the creative speakers don't have digital optical and digital coax. I Have z-5500's and they rock, i run them over digitial opt. I see your p5k has digital coax, i suggest you use that

ok so i thought you had more to spend.

however, that is some crazy advice given by manticore, the elite pro is of no use unless you are a musician needing it for home recording.

get a more modest x-fi if you are at all gaming do not use onboard.

also, i have not used the z-550's but one thing i will say is that people's idea's of what sounds good can bve extremely different. I used to think my speakers were pretty good for music but they ain't. they ain't terrible but they are not that great.

however, for your budget and since music is low down on your list you may be better off with the s750. Just my opinion of course but as with all opinions (unless they suggest silly soundcards) it is worth taking into account.

also, this topic of what speakers are better has been argued for well over a year if not two, try searching and reading previous ones. There are some very knowledgable people on these forums in regard to sound, some may not post anymore but there valuable advice has been given sometime or other.

hehe, i have a spare set in my loft due to a mix up with creative, my sub wasn't working that great so they sent me a whole new set, when i enquired if they meant to give me a whole new set they said no i could keep them anyway. In the end the sub seemed to fix itself so i have spares, and no you ain't getting them moohaha.

My recommendation to you is, go for neither of them. Why? Because they are crap and in no way a match for an audio system hooked to an amplifier system.

With more or less the same amount of budget, you can buy yourself a decent amplifier unit and depending on whether you want to annoy your neighbour, you can get 100W or 150W speakers, hook your amplifier to your coaxial out / optical out at the back of your inbuilt sound card (Preferably if you can buy a decent Creative soundcard).

Let your amplifier does the DTS, Dolby decoding, and hook another set of wires from your sound out to your amplifier's pre-amp in. Reason for this is, although most amplifier is able to decode DTS, Dolby, etc, I have yet seen one that can decode EAX. In this particular instance, EAX will be decoded by computer sound card, but the rest will be decoded by the amplifer.

This is a killer combo, probably work out to be over your budget, but hey, you can work slowly up, from a 2.1 -> 7.1 and get to choose all the best speaker as you go along. If you are on tight budget, you probably can get away with a standalone amp, a subwoofer and 7 small satelite speakers, all within your budget

I have the Gigaworks system, but soon realise that Gigaworks which is the most expensive computer speaker is only comparable to a lower to mid range speaker in the audio market. And Gigaworks is not cheap. The only thing that Gigaworks is comparable to the audio system is the subwoofer, the rest of the speakers is like comparing Kia to Mercedes. I have done some rewiring to fit my Gigaworks to my amplifier, at the moment, I am using all 7 speakers, but I think I will upgrade my way up and will probably only keep the subwoofer. Oh, did you know that Gigaworks speaker only go all the way up to 70W whereas 100W is consider the norm in a typical audio system?

Rating for gigaworks amp? The subwoofer does 210W, while 70W for 7 of the speakers, making it a 700W speaker system.

It definitely definitely can't do 700W because apparently the Creative Engineer cannot do their maths, they equip the power cable with 3A fuse or whatever 5A fuse for US model. With that sort of fuse rating, before the speaker can output that sort of wattage, the fuse would have blown.

Maybe that explain why so many people complaint about blown fuse.

Amen. I have the Z5500's (for a little of a year) they're okay for PC speakers but if you have a ton of money, consider at least a receiver and some truer speakers. Now, if $250 is your "ton of money" well, you may still be able to beat PC speakers.

Well, if you have the space you'd be better of with even one of those "cheaper" pre-packaged home-theatre kits, in my opinion. ...and you'd get more utility (if you can use the utility). Don't get me wrong, the Z5500 are certainly enjoyable for PERSONAL surround and if you want to annoy your neighbors. The sub it has...will kill bacteria on your walls. ...but the sats are pretty directional (poor dispersion).

So, if these are just for you and you're limited on space (don't have the space (or don't want to use the space) for a receiver than the z5500s may be justified on that ground. ...but looking back, I'd say go with a pre-packaged home theater kit (if you don't want to spend the time searching for seperates).

well i barely have any room lol, my room sixe is about 5 by 4 metres then my screen is about 3 metres away from the wall so i really only have 2 metres by 3.5 metres. so very tight on space!

im starting to think i may just get the s750 with a sound card, but i duno now really hmm.

are there any amps which are cheaper much cheaper! as i dont wana spend £2k on speakers

I am a Gigaworks owner, I can assure you that the s750 is powerful enough to blow your wall apart. With such a small room, do you really need 700W speaker system? You may be able to grab a speaker system completed with the AV receiver for less if you visit Richersounds or visit their website (presume you are from UK as you quoted pound instead of any other currencies).

Before I forget, I need to remind you that Gigaworks is a PC speaker system, it cannot be wired to your home theatre system without buying a standalone Creative DDTS-100 decoder. Apparently, Creative has stopped producing DDTS-100. Your only choice if you want to hook up the Gigaworks to your shinny Plasma, Xbox, PS3, SkyHD, etc is either you buy a used DDTS-100 decoder from the ebay or get yourself an AV Receiver with a bit of manual rewiring work to the speaker system.

Creative DDTS-100 decoder is even more rare than pair of jeans crafted by Versace himself, so, be expected to pay a premium to buy one, even a used one from Ebay. If you are as frustrated as I do when trying to buy one from the internet, you may want to follow my footstep, that is to fork out an additional £50 - £80 on top of whatever the ebayer says the Creative DDTS-100 decoder is worth and get a complete audio/video connectivity all in one AV box. I am pleased I have gone for this route but regretted that I picked up an AV without all the bells and whistles, like HDMI upscaling functionality, etc. But that is another story to tell for tomorrow.

Conclusion is, if you only intend to hook your speaker to your PC, Gigaworks is almost too powerful. Games / Movies, Gigaworks really shine in these area, but is a bit weak for Music - too bassy, with all the higher frequencies sound almost entirely buried away by the powerful subwoofer. The choice is yours.

have to point out that as i said in one of my previous posts the gigaworks are not really that powerful and are in no way a 700W system.

also, it is a very boomy sub not a powerful one. I like them and all but am not delusional. the only reason the sub will bury the higher frequencies is if the volume on it is too loud and also that it is just a crap sub for music.

i don't mean to put you off but you get what you pay for.

yes the soundcard I believe does do 7.1 upmixing, I have the z5500 and the Extreme music, and I must say... watching DivX Transformers with it, sound very stunning in my room, it nearly seemed real. The sub kicks ass with the sound card.. you just need to tune it a little bit. I'm absolutely amazed by this system for this amount of money. And the soundcard kicks ass too, the software and the use of this card in games is very sweet. minus point is I have a wooden floor and you can hear it down the parking lot where the people go for their shoppings, but hey, who cares anyway aslong as I don't get angry people at my door

good good, does DTS and DD make a difference? as i have a number fo HD in those formats

i was thinking i could just get a splitter which spits the red white into 3.5mm, then a 3.5mm splitter which splits 2 channels into one. one from the tv and one from the pc. ah its confusing.

sharp, I don't quite understand what you are trying to do actually. You should connect all three 1/8" jack to the s750, it comes with cable with 3x1/8" (to the soundcard) and 4x1/8" on the other end (to s750).

Where are you going to plug your red/white rca? You said you gonna get a splitter which allows you to plug the audio out from tv and audio out from pc to a single 3.5mm jack, where does this jack goes? The back of the speaker? The speaker has four female jack.

You want to connect audio out from the TV to audio out from the PC. No, this won't work. An output must always be connected to an input. That is the basic. You can't go very wrong if you follow this rule.

Don't split signals you will get audio signal loss and more attenuation and noise in the signal!

Get a decent amp, and decent speakers and you will be happy, don't make it complicated!

S750 is a very good speaker to go with your PC provided you don't introduce any additional devices to the speaker system. If you want to share your new speaker with other entertainment devices, I suggest you get a DDTS-100 or any standalone AV system.

knowing its a htib set, the biggest question i have then is if youre going to be able to make use of the multiple hdmi connections on it. since the amplifier i would guess is probably taking up around $200+ of the total cost. looking through the online manual, they have one half page devoted to its speakers, and the remaining 59 pages devoted mainly to 2 different amplifier models. just based on that alone, and the limited info on the speakers themselves, it does seem you can do a lot better, if youre going for sound quality over connectivity.

if you need the hdmi connections though (such as for watching bluray and hddvd discs, assuming you have a compatible player already), then i guess you cant argue with the price too much.

sorry took so long to respond...

but definetly. though most receivers will come with at least a few different connections, which given what youre looking for, is almost guaranteed to be overkill anyhow, unless you find other things you may want to connect later on too, such as you may want to later dedicate it to being strictly a home theatre setup, maybe in a living room for example when they outlive the life of your pc, which is something that you really cant do well at all with pc speakers. but that aside, heres some ideas for the receiver and speakers:

Sony 5.1 A/V Receiver - $118 (i added this afterwards, it comes with HDMI support too, coincidentally)
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-STR-DG5 [...] 087&sr=1-1

Sony 6.1 A/V Receiver - $140
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-STR-DG5 [...] 750&sr=1-8

Sony Center Channel - $88
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-SSC-N50 [...] 074&sr=1-1

Sony Center Channel and Satellite Pair - $55
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-SSC-R30 [...] 074&sr=1-4

Sony Bookshelves - $49 per pair
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-SSB-100 [...] 96-8529545

Sony Bookshelves - $85 per pair
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-SSB-300 [...] 074&sr=1-2

Sony Powered Subwoofer - $67
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-SA-W250 [...] 532&sr=1-2

Sony Powered Subwoofer - $120
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-SA-W300 [...] 500&sr=1-3


so, depending on how many and which model speakers you might get, youll stay under your $400 budget, possibly by a lot (the cheapest 5.1 speaker/receiver combination came out to $289). if you were to get a surround amp and just a pair of floorstandings ($233 cheapest combination from the list), it will definetly sound better than the $289 5.1 combo, but it offers no surround then either, as its only 2 speakers, you can always add more speakers though, of coarse

and if you later wanted to, you could add a surround back speaker too, since the 6.1 receiver will allow for 6.1 channel dd-ex and dts-es decoding. it might also allow for splitting the single surround back channel into 2 seperate surround back channels, as some 6.1 receivers will allow that, effectively creating 7.1 surround. and so if you later wanted to purchase floorstanding speakers for use as the front speakers, instead of purchasing even more bookshelves, then heres some examples:

Sony 3-way Floorstanding Speakers - $115 per pair
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-SS-MF65 [...] B00029U12Q

Sony 4-way Floorstanding Speakers - $175 per pair
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-SSF-600 [...] 074&sr=1-3

(you could also purchase 1 front center channel, 1 floorstanding pair for the fronts, 1 bookshelf pair for the side surrounds, and 1-2 other bookshelf speakers for the back surround(s), and maybe 1 powered subwoofer for more additional bass that you can position elsewhere, such as closer to where a person might be sitting; floorstandings effectively replace the need for a seperate sub, but a seperate sub can be helpful as well, if you need additional low frequencies)


as far as 5.1 satellite and sub setups, heres a set that was given to me as a gift at christmas, it was purchased for $200 in 2003 at best buy, this online retailer is selling them for $350 though, probably because theyre no longer available. they had sold for as much as $800 at some places, but i really cant imagine anyone having paid that much for them

Sony 5.1 Satellites and Sub
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-SA-VE44 [...] 205&sr=1-1

so a pair of the above listed 3-way floorstandings 2 years later really helped to smooth out the remaining range that the satellites and sub were lacking by themselves, it was a significant improvement, to say the least.


but, all of the above listed speakers are matched fairly well as far as specs and such, being as how theyre all from the same relative range of models. frequency range, materials used, and all that, meaning they should all sound pretty similar to one another... i guess even colors are matched for that matter too, from an aesthetic POV.

go with the logitechs