I’m looking for a semi budget stereo system that I will first use with my TV and then transfer to my desktop when I get something better.

I’ve narrowed it down to an Edifer S350DB or a Creative X7 E-MU XM7 bundle.

The Edifer is a tri-amped 2.1 system with the amps in the subwoofer and passive satellite speakers. 3/4 inch tweeters, 3 inch mid and an 8 inch subwoofer driver. The reviews are great. The X7 setup is a more standard soundcard/amp hooked up to passive 2.0 speakers, with 1 inch tweeters and three inch woofers. This gets decent reviews as well but there are no real comparisons between the two setups, I suspect though that the former gives better sound quality whilst the latter system is upgradeable and has a fancy external soundcard for gaming.

Which setup? Any other suggestions?

Had a set of Edifer for a while, cant fault them working with either the TV or the PC would take another set over a creative set if the choice was there

Cheers, yeah I am leaning towards the Edifiers. There are quite a few bat shit insane audio lunatics raving about them on YouTube eg “Z Reviews”.

Depends what your main objective is. Do you just want noise, or quality if listening to music?

I had a similar requirement and went with some alesis active speakers and usb soundcard. Cost about £150 all together and sounds very good indeed with music.

The speakers are monitors and designed for close listening and the usb sound card makes a huge difference in quality compared to the audio out on my laptop.

Picked up a set of Mission 760i with a baby Onkyo receiver for about 35quid the other day, they’re tiny and sound rather good.

Certainly a reasonable aoproach to PC HiFi

May lack top end audiophile love but packs punch and dts with optical inputs logitech z906.

Gaming and Movies the z906 is pretty damn good as its surround sound. For stereo music I would go for a high quality soundcard and hi-fi amp/speakers or some nice active monitors.

quality if listening to music?

Quality. Which is what is putting me off cheap 5.1 systems. Long history of professional musicians in my family, so whilst I’m not a proper hifi lunatic – I need a decent level of clarity and depth to sound to avoid driving me nuts.

I guess I figured with the creative setup I could go on to use the two passive bookshelf speakers as decent rear speakers in a 5.1 setup on the tv.

Or just go with the S350DB which is decent enough for music and swap it over onto the desktop when I can justify buying a decent 5.1 setup with good bookshelf speakers all at once.

My hearts quite set on some of these at the moment