PC Peripherals Creative Cambridge Soundworks SW320 Vs Inspire 5200

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daumaster

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Old sound config on my PC :

1) nForce2 Soundstorm Onboard MoBo ASUS A7N8X Deluxe
2) Speakers Creative Cambridge SoundWorks SW320 2.1

New upgraded sound config :

1) Creative Audigy2 (First Version with THX & Firewire port) Soundcard
2) Speakers Creative INSPIRE 5.1 5200

The INSPIRE perform excellently in gaming & movies. My son played BATTLE FOR MIDDLE EARTH in 5.1 Dolby Digital, while I watched Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ERASER DVD in the 5.1 mode.

However, when I set up the speakers in 2 channel mode & listened to some audio CDs, the sound was inferior to what I was getting previously from my old 2.1 set up. I feel like setting up my old speakers again to enjoy my music like I used to before. I had to apply tweaks in the CREATIVE EAX console like enabling Audio effects/Advance EQ/Heavy Metal to get somewhere near to my old preferred sound, which I had previously got by using only DFX 7 and no tweaks in the EAX console (I used the 2.1 speakers with my AUDIGY2 for 1 month).

It seems the INSPIRE range is inferior to the earlier CAMBRIDGE SOUNDWORKS range. Did anyone else have similar experiences ?
 
From what i've heard, the Cambridge Soundworks are indeed a notch above the standard Creative Inspire stuff. Inspires - though decent to most of us, are more like the budget line-up in the Creative arsenal.

The Cambridge Soundworks lineup on the other hand are targetted at higher-end audio. Hence, no surprise they should sound better.

To rule out any possibilities that perhaps your system/soundcard isnt upto snuff, you could hook up the older 2.1 system and check.
 
the Inspire is definitely not as good as the Cambridge Soundworks... Today even the Creative Megaworks, Gigaworks, are actually made by Cambridge soundworks but are not sold as such.
 
Instead of inspire 5200, you could have gotten an altec lansing 251 for the same price. It runs circles round the inspire in just about everything! Also if you want good sound, don't use the equalizer.... it causes the audigy to resample from 44.1 to 48 kHz which makes stuff sound like crap. Get foobar2000 to play audio and resample using foobar from 44.1 to 48kHz for best audio quality. Also try and use the asio driver for best results.
 
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