[LAU] 5.1 hardware

[Jonathan Gazeley]

Not strictly Linux-related, but I want to know if anyone has 
recommendations for 5.1 speakers for editing 5.1 audio. Most 5.1 speaker 
sets are aimed either at PC gaming or home theatre applications.

I'm a classical music recording engineer and I do all my recording work 
in the field with a laptop and a firewire mixer/interface - a mixture of 
stereo and ambient 5.1 with a Williams Star microphone array. I then 
copy the recordings onto my editing PC at home which currently has a 
regular amp and stereo speakers. I edit 5.1 recordings "by inspection", 
editing each channel in turn and just hoping the final product sounds 
OK. I don't hear the finished product until I burn a DVD-Audio disc and 
play it back on my Blu-Ray home theatre system.

I don't think I would want to use a 5.1 speaker set for my stereo 
editing work so I would want to switch from the stereo amp+speakers to 
the 5.1 set. Probably means having two sound cards.

I am on a tight budget so I'm wondering if I can get away with a cheap 
5.1 set just to check the levels between each channel, but still use my 
decent stereo speakers for all the other editing. Thoughts?

Cheers,
Jonathan

-- 
Jonathan Gazeley
Senior Systems Administrator
IT Services
University of Bristol