Suggestions for sound cards/external speakers?

Hey,

so i got a Vostro 1500 for christmas (specs in sig) and im looking for some nice speakers for music/gaming..etc.. in my room.

I need to know how much the sound card in my notebook will affect the sound quality of the music/ in game sounds.

My Current sound card is a "SigmaTel High Definition Audio" i believe. and the speakers i am looking at are the Logitec Z-5500's

So i really just need to know what my options are. As in should i just purchase the speakers and ill be good? or is there anything else i should do before hand. Im really looking for strong audio for my itunes library and from reviews the z-5500's seem like they have some strong bass which is what im looking for. And i just need to know if i need to replace my sound card to get the best performance from the speakers.


Thanks a lot to everybody

 

The Z-5500 i believe has a front, rear and sub inputs.
You on the other hand just has a out.
You will need to get a external sound card to get the most performance.
Also I find that Dell's SigmaTel HD sound card really sucks.
My friend has a Dell D630 with a Sigmatel card, my bro had a HP dv2xxx(forget the card name)and I have a Toshiba A200, with a Realtek card.
The Dell by far was the worst, the audio wasn't clear and everything was off, the Hp was ok with a bit if tin can stuff, and mine was the best, sounds just like when you plug in a ipod.

 

Alright. So would you be able to point me in the direction of a decent external sound card?

thanks

 

I was never realy satisfied with onboard codec either. So I used on my old older Toshiba a Creative Audigy 2 ZS PCMCIA card with ful in and out and DTS digital as well. They offer a USB version as the Sound Blaster Live! SB0490 w/ 5.1 Channels 24-bit 48kHz if ou dont have older non PCI-E card bus. Ten theres the external Creative 70SB072000000 USB Interface XMOD. I neve use it on my notebok yet but ounded great on lde PC's and other poribles. Ofers DTS.

 

I have a toshiba multimedia audio/usb dock which works awesome with some 5.1 logitech speakers that I have. Nearly got myself evicted from my apartment rocking them out. The only problem is toshiba has not made these puppies VISTA compatible, so it doesnt work with my new computer. I just bought the dynadock which is audio/usb and video port (allows 3 video outputs (current display, an extra from the notebook and a third from the docking). Awaiting its arrival. Unfortunately, all i care about is the audio, so I am wasting money on this second docking device just to get something that is vista compliant. If you run windowsXP i can highly recommend the audio/usb hub from toshiba, although it is not currently in production.