There was a time when the sound your PC was capable of producing was limited to little more than a few beeps and squawks. Thankfully, those days are long gone. Modern sound cards are capable of producing crystal-clear audio that can rival even top-end products from hi-fi specialists.

The biggest advances in PC audio have taken place in the realm of surround sound. First introduced to PCs to scare gamers witless with the sound of baddies and aliens creeping up on them, it was only with the explosion of DVD movies that every man and his dog suddenly wanted a surround sound set-up.

If you're going to invest in a computer that doubles as a home entertainment system, it's absolutely essential that you choose a good speaker package to make the most of your PC's audio capabilities.

Naturally, there is a bewildering array of choices on offer from bog-standard stereo PC speakers to top-notch surround sound systems designed for use with a hi-fi or home entertainment system.

A sound investment
Today's sound cards can support up to 7.1 surround sound. What this means is that they support seven-speaker surround sound, with a separate subwoofer for deeper bass sounds. Most home cinema set-ups, however, are more than adequate with 5.1 channel sound.

It wasn't until relatively recently that 7.1-channel-speaker packages started to appear on the market. Videologic was one of the first PC speaker manufacturers to offer this with its affordable ZXR-750 speaker set, which will set you back £100 and offers good sound quality.

The ZXR-750 set is also capable of producing seven-speaker audio, even if your PC features a sound card that supports five- or six-speaker surround sound.

Creative also has a low-cost 7.1-channel-speaker package available called the Inspire 7700 which costs just £119, but doesn't offer the same powerful sound as more expensive packages. If you have the cash to spend and are looking for really great sound quality, the Creative Gigaworks S750 package is hard to beat at £329.

The other major drawback with seven-speaker surround sound is the sheer number of speakers and the mass of cables that will clutter up the room. This, combined with the fact that there aren't a huge number of games or movies that support 7.1 surround sound, means that many people are sticking with 5.1 set-ups.

This is because most people find that five-speaker surround sound sets provide a better compromise between the space they take up and the surround sound experience they produce.

In fact, the vast majority of surround sound speaker sets on the market are five-speaker packages. Many of these speaker systems even come with their own surround sound decoder for playing back digital audio formats from DVD movies.

The advantage of having a hardware decoder is that these speaker systems can easily be used with your DVD player or games console as well as your PC. Logitech's Z-680 speaker set, for example, costs £300 and comes with a decoder that can handle a range of surround sound formats. The set produces very crisp, clear and punchy sound.

Branch out
You don't have to stick with PC speaker packages if you're on the hunt for a surround sound bundle. The massive popularity of DVD movies and the growth of home cinema has meant that five-speaker surround sound kits are all the rage at the moment. As a result, it can be worth investigating speaker packages that are marketed for home cinema rather than those that are built specifically for PCs.

Sony, for example, offers the HTBE1 speaker package. This is really aimed at people who own DVD players, with a built-in decoder for surround sound.

As a result, the HTBE1 package includes a built-in amplifier. This means you can connect your sound card directly to the speaker system's built-in amplifier without the need for any other equipment.

Not all home cinema speaker packages come with built-in amplifiers though. This means you'll need to buy a surround sound amplifier to go with your speaker package. Prices for surround sound amplifiers start at around £100, so you'll have to take this into account when you are budgeting for a speaker system.

If you are willing to go to the bother of choosing an additional external amplifier, there are some great speaker packages around that don't cost the earth.

Yamaha's NS-P100 five-speaker package will only set you back £130 but is a sterling performer. It produces rich audio that still sounds crisp at higher frequencies and is more than capable of handling the rumblings from explosions in computer games or DVD video.

The full monty
If you really want to splash out, you could always spoil yourself with a speaker package from one of the classic British brands in hi-fi. Speaker sets from companies such as B&W, Kef and Mission are going to cost you a lot more than those from the likes of Logitech or Creative but, if you want really amazing sound, the extra expense is worth it.

Mission, for example, has a stunning surround sound package in the M5 Cinema set, but at over £1,000 you'd need to be a real audio enthusiast to justify the expense.

However, Mission also offers some more reasonably priced kits, such as the very stylish FS1 5.1-channel package that uses flat-speaker technology from American firm NXT, which obviously means your speaker set will take up less space. The FS1 set can be yours for a more reasonable £500.

But what if you're not into clogging up your room with massive numbers of speakers and all the necessary cables they require? What if you just want a pair of stereo speakers that look good and sound great when you're listening to MP3s?

You could always go for Creative's interesting looking I-Trigue L3500s that cost £130. They produce great sound, but don't come cheap and don't look as good as the JBL Creature speakers. Not only do the Creatures look great, but they produce very good sound too. And although they were originally designed for use with Apple Mac computers, there's nothing to stop you connecting them up to your PC. They're very reasonably priced at £95.

No matter what your needs are in terms of audio there's plenty of choice available to you when it comes to adding speakers to your PC. There's no doubt that sticking with conventional PC speakers makes life easy but if you want the very best audio from your PC then looking a bit further afield can reap big rewards.

CONTACTS

Creative
uk.europe.creative.com

JBL 020 8731 4670
www.jbl.com

Logitech 020 7309 0127
www.logitech.com

Mission 01480 423700
www.mission.co.uk

Sony 08705 111999
www.sony.co.uk

Yamaha 01923 233166
www.yamaha-audio.co.uk