Hi
Let
You said you don't like tinkering. You seem however to want to extract the maximum from your system at the lowest cost possible. IOW you want to maximize your return on investment. You also listen from your PC. Am I correct.
To avoid back and forth, I will assume in the following that I was correct
. Do not construct the following, as patronizing or condescending. We have all been ignorant at one point and continue to be in many areas of accurate music reproduction in the home... So these said:
In most instance some signal modifications (aka Signal Processing) is required for best performance in any Audio System. EQ is Signal Processing.
Drop the idea of using the Creative thingies. Toys. They are NOT for the purpose of good sound in the home.
You have a PC, if reasonably powerful (a Celeron is enough in most instance) is a powerful Digital Signal Processor for audio applications.
Once you do DSP you will have to tinker. A lot. Rinse and Repeat, be disappointed, Learn why and Re-do.. Re-Tinker. There is no way around that.
Tinkering involves:.
Learning what the problems are. Lot of reading, researching and yes, asking questions on this forum or others. Ask these here the SINAD here is perhaps the highest.
.
Acquiring REW, the best and, an indispensable tool to do this by yourself, REW is free
Acquiring a good measuring microphone. The GOTO is miniDSP UMik-1 at about $100, from Bezos's online marketplace.
It also involves measuring (tinkering stll
) . a lot, often and learning to interpret the results.
...
Once you get yourself into DSP, then you are tinkering, You must tinker ...
or for less fuss but still some tinkering required:
Get an AVR, say a Denon AVR-X3700, one of the best reviewed here. It also has Audyssey XT 32 and you must acquire the Audyssey Smartphone App ($20.oo) to get good results. The best results shall be obtained with the Audyssey PC app at $200.oo. I don't know much about Dirac , it is however usually found in more expensive hardware...
or you get a DIRAC Live product. miniDSP makes several but you will have to tinker a lot ...
For set and forget, but still, some tinkering required... you get something like the Lyngdorf Integrated Amplifier with RoomPerfect. You set it up once (after some tinkering
) and you are done. It however, is not cheap...Not at all, and getting the best results will involve some... measurements aka "tinkering".
I believe you have the Kef R3. If you add a pair of decent subwoofer to these , say a pair of SVS SB-2000 or Rythmik L12 or HSU ...
Add a miniDSP 2x4 HD to the system
Download REW
acquire a UmIk-1 and...
Tinker a lot
.. You will have a system capable of sublime performance within the entire audible spectrum.
Peace.
