The Caffeinated Penguin

Posted By matt on November 27, 2005

Okay, so my monitor died, right? So I bought one of these. It's basically the same LCD as in a 20″ Apple Cinema display in different clothing, with some different electronics, and with more inputs. So, I can hook up a playstation or a DVD player or whatnot to it. It does picture in picture, so I can have the monitor overlay a window over my desktop without having to deal with TV tuner cards and such. Great!

However, I need speakers, and I'm really irked that I can't find what I want. I need a set of small computer-style speakers (could be a small home theater system too) that has the following characteristics:
(1) S/PDIF in (optical or coax)
(2) Analog in (RCA or 1/8″)
(3) 5.1 or greater surround sound.
(4) Dolby Digital decoder. DTS decoder would be nice, but isn't mandatory.
(5) The two inputs should be mixed, so that the both play at the same time (so that I get my beeps and such from the computer hooked to the analog input while listening to the TV show playing in th corner).
(6) Under $100.

Now, I can find ones which have (2)(3)(5) and (6), but presumably they don't have a digital because it's easier to mix to analog sources than it is to mix two digital sources.

I have found systems which have 2 digital inputs and 1 analog inputs for $175, but I presume it's just a “switch between” rather than a mixing.

So, I got pissed off that I couldn't find what I want and am sticking with the stereo speakers that I have. I can only choose one input source, but I'm not spending a pile of money on something that's not really what I want. Besides, I'm probably just going to watch TV on it, which is mostly stereo anyway.

Category: LJ Import
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