I just went through this process last year after I decided to upgrade my speakers to
these and all the reviews said I 'must have' a worthy sound card to make it worth my while. Well I ended up getting the card listed below because of it's frequent mail-in-rebates (there's one now!) and great reviews made it a clear cut winner in my eyes.
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS Platinum
Well I got the speakers first, plugged them into my existing on-board sound and I immediately questioned if I really needed a sound card, it sounded that much better just with new speakers!
Well, I had already ordered the sound card, so that arrived a day or two later, and when I plugged that in, to be honest, I didn't hear that much of a difference.
To go on to answer the why get a sound card question: I probably didn't need to, but my sound card does include a remote that lets me control volume, pause, and even power down the system... all very nice perks! It also has a zillion inputs/outputs which leads me to when I think a sound card really becomes a make-or-break, and that's for people who do recording (music and the such), and require a high quality input for clean sound.
So my suggestion (based on my experience) is to buy the speakers first, and if you're happy with it, skip the sound card. Maybe you'll think a new sound card could push the quality, then I say go for it!
As far as speakers... I was going to recommend the 5.1 equivalent of what I have, but some quick research revealed that while they sound great, I guess there's an issue with the internal amp dieing fast.
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