[Woolie Wool]

Not to brag, but I just got the Logitech X-540 5.1 Surround Sound Speaker System. After taking the half-hour to figure out where all the satellite speakers and the subwoofer goes, unwiring my old system, and finally plugging in the new system, I have had an epiphany. Those of you who do not have a subwoofer to play Freespace on need to get one. Those of you who have a subwoofer but no 5.1 Surround Sound system need to get one. Let me explain.

Subwoofer:

   Without my subwoofer, I didn't quite realize how powerful a subspace disruption was. After listening to incoming ships with my subwoofer ..... erm, well.... I had trouble concentrating on defending my objective. Subwoofers, IMHO, offer so much more to the game; I didn't realize how much bass the subspace disruption required. Subwoofers make up for about half of the subspace sound. Guys, if you have the money, go buy yourself a subwoofer, at the least.

Surround Sound:

    Well, not much to explain here. I could hear ships warping in behind me, off to port, starboard, whatever. It was much easier figuring out where hostiles were warping in; I killed most of them when they reverted to realspace and were still acquiring targets. Kills nearly doubled after I got my Surround Sound system.

I'll stick with my Sennheiser headphones. Besides, my headphones will completely destroy any computer speaker system for music. You need to spend a lotof money on speakers to match a $350 worth of headphones and amp (one thing to remember with headphone amps is that they're not really to make the music louder but to improve frequency response and bass reproduction by allowing the headphones to draw more power during peaks. It can be loud enough to blow your ears out if you turn a headphone amp all the way up, but turning headphones way up is very,  very bad for your hearing).

You can use your radar and targeting brackets to immediately track incoming hostiles anyway.

[Herra Tohtori]

Ah, but you cannot feel computer the table (wordmix typo bolded for great justice), floor and your pants shaking while using headphones, like you can with a subwoofer?

Obviously, as far as sound quality is concerned it's easier to get right with headphones as opposed to speaker system (especially as I can set two channels to work at 96kHz@24bits, versus having six channels only at 48kHz@24bits), but there's just something about being able to listen not only with your ears but also to feel the sound around you. And I'm not talking about setting the volume to the south-east quadrant... it's just different than headphones to be in the middle of the sound and not just making your ears hear it. I prefer speakers over headphones at daytime... assuming the speakers are of at least some quality.

I've got a rather interesting set-up as far as speakers go... one Creative Inspire P5800 5.1 system and older, Creative Inspire P380 2.1 system with satellites replaced with speakers from my Sony stereo set. Works pretty good for a room of this size.

[Grizzly]

I had a subwoofer, and It was awesome... now my father has it.

[S-99]

Lol, i first got my subwoofer system with fs2 back in the day. It had 4.1, it was better than nothing. My sound card had a kickass rear output, and front output, so i used my last crappy pair of speakers to be the rear output.  But man, the shockwaves, warping in and out, the explosions, the weapons, but most of all the flak stood out as the best experience in fs2 with subwoofers. Then the cheapo speakers for the subwoofer broke, but the subwoofer was fine, so i bought another pair of the same speakers, and got a headphone jack splitter and hooked up both subwoofers now. For 20$ speakers, they are very nice and so are the subwoofers, just that the speakers shouldn't be dropped on the floor. And i bought another same set of subwoofer speaker system because my old one went to it, i had an extra woofer that did work, and i had that great epiphany to having better bass by hooking them both up at the same side by side with a headphone jack splitter (these woofers have headphone jacks connectors). The woofers in the speaker system i bought are pretty much what the money pays for, the fragile speakers themselves do pump out great sound also, but yes very fragile. Subwoofers on the other hand, strong, great sounding for the price, and you can combine them very easily

[jr2]

I use Altec Lansing; I have a 5.1 system, a 2.1 system, a 2.0 system, and a headset.  If you have a set of headphones that is good quality, you shouldn't notice any difference in sound quality (in fact, it will be better... esp with noise-cancelling headphones!).  However, you will miss the throaty rumble in your chest, which feels so good.    To fix this problem, get a 2.1 or 5.1 system from Altec Lansing, or another reputable manufacturer, get a 1x mini stereo out > 2x mini stereo out Y-splitter, connect that to your sound card, run the headphones off of one end and your speakers off of the other.  XD

[colecampbell666]

I feel so deprived...

No HDRish, no subwoofer... Surround sound... Nothing...

I've got generic speakers, but mine must be good, because even though they are at least six years old, they are still on the market.

Then again, so are these pieces of ****
 
And I've got HDRish!...and a whole load of other cool shaders!

EDIT: I like my headphones, well worth the money getting for christmas.

Ah, but you cannot feel computer the table, floor and your pants shaking while using headphones, like you can with a subwoofer?

 

[Snail]

In the honor of Computer the Table the Fifth!

[Herra Tohtori]

That's one of the most awesomest the typoes I've ever written in the life of me.

I still win because in Finnish language we don't need no articles, though.

[Excalibur]

I feel so deprived...

No HDRish, no subwoofer... Surround sound... Nothing...

I've got generic speakers, but mine must be good, because even though they are at least six years old, they are still on the market.

Then again, so are these pieces of ****
 
And I've got HDRish!...and a whole load of other cool shaders!

EDIT: I like my headphones, well worth the money getting for christmas.

Ah, but you cannot feel computer the table, floor and your pants shaking while using headphones, like you can with a subwoofer?

 

I've got a piar of white D-zone speakers that look like that. Soooooo crap!

I (used) to use these but the amp has blown at the moment.