Audio Upgrade

Hello-
I would like to get some opinions on upgrading the Audio in my old XP system. I need to stick with PCI interface for the sound card, and the speakers I have been looking at are the Corsair SP2500's and the Audyssey Lower East Side 2.0's. Yeah, I know, quite an extreme between the two speaker choices.
I have been reading the Feedback on the ASUS and Creative cards at Tiger and Newegg and a lot of the negative issues are rather depressing. I just want a decent 5.1 24bit (or better) card that will work with the above mentioned speakers. I don't want to dump $200+ into a reference type card.
Thanks for any and all input!
tim

 

Pull up the sound cards on Newegg or Amazon and sort them by customer rating.

A given brand name doesn't equal quality across the board or even with in a range of sound cards (as an example, I swear by Patriot Wi-Fi USB adapters when doing PC upgrades at my shop; however I won't get within 500 feet of Patriot memory).

You might find what you're looking for in a lesser-known brand such as Rosewill, Turtle Beach, SIIG, etc.

Hope this helps.

 

Thanks, 'gman863'. That's what I have been doing, as far as the reviews go. They can be confusing- some give great reviews, others say something is junk.
This XP machine currently has a Creative SB Live! 24bit configuration and I just wanted to upgrade a bit and get some new speakers. I am in the process of building a new system around a 2nd Gen i5-2500k cpu and want an audio system that will transfer to this new build, at least speaker wise. Same issue with the reviews here, too- I get set on a mobo, read the reviews and then get discouraged. I just want a smooth build with no boot issues or any of the other issues with the mobo's. It seems that no matter what brand you select, there are dire reviews!...Go figure, who do you believe???...
Thanks again!
tim