Replacement for Inspire 5700 + Creative Audigy Platinum

Question

Hi,
for many years I have been using a combination of a Creative Audigy Platinum soundcard with a Creative Inspire 5.1 Digital 5700 speaker system. I am very pleased with the quality, compatibility and easy-to-useness of this system. For games and music, I let the soundcard do the decoding and send the bits via digital connection to the Inspire system, which I set to 5.1 DIN. For DVDs, I send everything via SPDIF and let the Inspire do the decoding, either DTS or Dolby digital. Works just perfectly.
Only problem: if everything works according to the plan, I will move from Europe to the States in two months and stay there for - 3 years. Because desktop computers and probably also my Inspire 5700 system are quite tricky to ship, I decided to buy a laptop here and buy another speaker system by creative after I have a arrived in the states. Full of anticipation I checked this site to choose my future system and ... was struck by shock:
I couldn't find any system which offered the same features as the Digital 5700! All modern systems lack digital input, leave alone an external decoder and have primitive wire-remotes instead of real remotes! Why has this kind of great system disappeared? Of course you cannot buy the good old 5700 anymore, which leaves me with a great problem of how to organize a system which offers similar quality and features.
I originally planned to connect my laptop (ASUS A8JS) via S/PDIF to the new inspire 5.1 speaker set, which would then do the job of decoding digital audiostreams coming from DVDs. But well, since the new Inspire sets neither support S/PDIF nor offer external decoding, that idea has been flushed down the toilet
What do you recommend instead? I guess I will need a USB Sound Blaster in combo with an inspire speaker set. What will provide the same quality to what I had? What are the drawbacks of not having digital connections any more? How can I control sound levels of the subwoofer, center and rearspeakers, if there is no external decoder anymore? Only via software?
Thank you very much for any advice!
- spitfire

Answer 1

Thank you very much for your helpful replies! Future looks much brighter now
Where have you found the Audigy 2 NX? On their webpage, creative only list the USB Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Video Editor or the Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit External as USB-solutions. Since I don't need the video editing capability, the Audigy 2 ZS would probably be quite an overkill. Still, the price difference between Audigy ($250) and Life! ($50) is ... drastic! Besides the video stuff and some connections, what else is the Life! solution missing? Does it have poor quality? Is there no real 3D sound, just some kind of upmixing? It's not very clear from the specifications.
The Logitech Z-5500 Digital looks very promising, too. A consequent improvement of the Inspire D-5700, just by the competition I may go for that one, but probably still need an external soundcard for 3D-sound in games.
I am not exactly an expert considering connections. So, my laptop will already have digital S/PDIF built into the headphone plug. Just from the look, I'd say this is the same kind of plug which is called "Analog/Digital-Out" on my old Audigy sound card. Now, the logitech system supports digital optical or digital coaxial as source input. Will this work with the S/PDIF headphone out, or would it require the DIN connection you mentionned? Could this be easily solved by buying an adaptor?
Looking at the picture showing the connections of the SB Life! I again am not clear at all what kind of connections there are (http://us.creative.com/products/prod...Specifications ). Is there anything compatible with the Logitech system? I guess it's no question the Audigy2 ZS is equipped with the required connections.
So, to summarize my question: could I digitally connect either my laptop or the SB Live! 24-bit external with the Logitech Z-5500, so that the latter would take care of decoding Dolby Digital and DTS sound, while the sound blaster would provide EAX and 3D sound for games?
I have also seen that Creative Labs still offers an external decoder with a lot of connection possibilities. It's just no longer part of a speaker system, but rather a standalone product: the Creative Decoder DDTS-100 for $30. Together with a good speaker system, this may be an alternative to the logitech solution, in terms of enabling to plug in other devices than just a computer (another thing I really loved about my old system).
Well, again thank you very much for your advice!
- spitfire