PC Spakers, soundcards and the fun

[gigatron]

Hey guys, just wondering, has anyone been into PC speakers and soundcard, tuning/upgrading and whatnot. Just wondering. What about designing your own custom amp in conjunction with the speakers (anything based on the zen/alephs/etc...).

I took apart Altec Lanzing speakers yesterday (crappy casing o_O) and wanted to combine with my old bigger speakers (like 6 years old, but really nice). The tweeters and larger midrange in conjunction with the smaller midrange from the altec lanzing speakers make a nice combination, the woofer with the altec lanzing after numerous tuning sessions turns out to be crap (i finally got rid of the farting effect with hacked up audigy2 drivers on my live card). Still sucked though...

Didn't touch the altec lanzing amp though, in fact i crumbled the old speaker's ones ;_; I was hoping there was people who designed their own amp for pc speakers. Just wondering.

This is just for fun, games and listening to music while doing work and such. Just wondering has anyone been messing around with their pc speakers?

[sangram]

I had actually planned on building a 30 WRMS amp based on TDA 2030a chips in BTL config, but I couldn't get suitably good-sounding shielded drivers. For the heck of it I tried the amp with my main speakers and have now been advertising to sell what used to be my main amp, an NEC AV-360.

Getting speakers is a big issue, I have everything planned out beautifully, waiting for some good shielded drivers to become available. Till then, I'm using a little JVC boombox for the computer, never been a fan of computer speakers. The boombox needs to go on sale, it's really old, but I need something to listen to my game music on. The only thing considerable now are the Lansing 621s but I can't afford them yet...

I have an SB Live! with Kx drivers for Win2K and my MP3 listening, for Games I use the Creative drivers in Win98... Drivers to me seem to make a big difference in sound quality, apart from hard-modding the cards which I don't have the guts to do.

[gigatron]

Oh absolutely, switching from the 'latest' live drivers to the audigy2 drivers... DAMN, huge difference, HUUUGE difference. Either way still sucks, but whacha gona do haha... ah well. The creative cards live and up have a programable chip so it is basically 'upgraded' per say with new drivers. The border between hardware-software is diminishing on so many levels in the computer world

The amps in the altec is OK, but sux, when I turn up the sound as I like to (not THAT loud, its just that its turned up high), it begins to be distorted and i have very sensitive ears.. it bothers me to hear the distortions! So... I would want to build some sort of amp thats more precise. The older amp that i smashed (i wana cry now), was perhaps better... i dont know.. perhaps... but i wanted to go along with the new... so i stuck with the altec lansing ones.. plus it had a woofer.... turns out crap so i disconnected the woofer i connected the two other speakers (old ones, the one i took the amp out of 'forcefully) and well.. connected them.. each one had one tweeter and midrange, so whats left of the altec lansing is just the small midrange and amp.

I hate distortion and farting and whatnot >_<.. hmm I'd like to build something clean and precise while still powerful... any class A pc speakers? haha... Well... is there? Any schematics/designs/plans? I like having nice sound on my computer