howdy: looking for advice

[lucasd2002]

Hey folks, I recently got out of college and moved on the to the real

world. I have always been a big Klipsch fan but have never had

the dollars to spare to get into them[] (I grew up with a Dad who had

a nice NAD amp/preamp setup but multimedia has passed him by

now). The only exception was a Promedia 4.1 system I recieved as

a gift a couple years ago. I know this has been asked before, but

I am looking for the latest and most up-to-date advice about adapting

the promedia setup to a home theater/reciever. I do not have a

reciever yet b/c I'm kinda waiting for technology to slow if

possible. I'd like to see an HK with HDMI inputs/outputs (maybe

that's already out there) but that's another story.

My dilemma now is: Can I use these speakers (with the addition of

a center channel) with a HT? ... or should I leave them with the

computer? The sub would be great for a HT IMO.

It would be nice if I do NOT have to start from scratch- ie needing all speakers and a reciever.

Also, if the brains of this system (RH and sub) will not work, can I

use the 2 sats (with the headphone style minijacks) as sats in a HT or

do they need to stay with the 4.1 system?

I post here in HT b/c I want a HT perspective: what, if any, sound

quality will I see with these speaker as opposed to a normal HT

setup.

Thanks for any and all advice!

[Cal Blacksmith]

The general answer is that it depends. If you are in a small bedroom for example and you are not super picky about sound quality, yes you can use your current setup. Anything is better than nothing. But don't expect it to sound like you spent $10,000 on it because it won't.

You ask about a receiver and at the same time want to use the little amp that came with the 4.1 setup. It is one or the other. If you have a receiver, it will power the speakers, if you use the little amp you have, you won't get a center channel. The little sub that you have with the computer setups won't move much air but will fill in the bass notes.

I bought my son a 5.1 GMRX setup for his gaming, ( I highly recommend this setup, it sounds much better than it has any right to!) a little over a year ago and he is very happy with it. It does double duty as a HT setup when he plays DVDs on the play station. Klipsch speakers sound much better than they should for the money you spend.

So it depends on what you expect out of a HT system. It will probably sound better than a HTIB setup and you already own the speakers, give it a try and go from there.

[lucasd2002]

Thanks for the response!

What are my connectiviuty options for the 4.1 system and a decent quality receiver? The input to the setup is a couple of headphone-jack style connections (1 for front, 1 for surround, I assume). Am I stuck using a pc with my HT in order to use these speakers? Thanks

[Cal Blacksmith]

No, you could cut off the plugs and strip the wires, you could buy headphone extension cables at some place like Radio shack and cut the male plug off of THOSE wires and use the female jack on the cable to connect into. You could buy wire and jacks and make the adaptors yourself.

A PC is not a bad thing to use in a HT setup. I use one for all my source. I have a HD tuner card and feed it from a roof top antenna. in addition, the card takes in the signals from componet, composite, S-Vidio and scales (upconverts) the signal to output to my projector. I also use the PC as a DVD player as well.

The audio is fed via tosslink to the reciever for decoding and output to the speakers.