Questions About My Swan M200/Logitech Woofer setup

[6ces11]

So i purchased some swan m200s from a forum member (Bixby, who was great to do deal with by the way) and i hooked up them up to the subwoofer from my logitch z-2300s (the speakers normally connect to the woofer through rca, so the swans plugged right in).

I personally think it sounds great, i can keep the bass low on the swans and still have a real nice thump. But i have some questions.

1) Am i stupid for doing this?

2) How should i control the volume? Between the logitech controller, the swan volume knob, and the sound control on my pc, and the volume control on itunes, whats the best order to adjust the sound? For now ive been leaving my pc output at half, turning up the logitech controller, and then using the swan knob. Any advice?

3) Would a dac be worth it and which one? I would be in the price range of around 50-85 usd but ill go up to 100 if its really worth it. I figure i can use it on the pc and on my laptop when i travel so it would have to be ideal for headphones and speakers if it makes any difference.

Please help. Thank you.

[6ces11]

No one has any input?

[episiarch]

Whether a DAC is worth it depends on the quality of the sound ouput of your PC. Make your own decision on this. PC sound is generally fairly bad (any of: audible noise/hiss/hum, poor lows, truncated highs) unless you've equipped it with a premium soundcard, and even then it's suspect since there is lots of electrical noise inside the PC enclosure to pollute the signal unless it's well shielded. Listen closely to the output of your PC and decide for yourself.

The M200 is a nicely resolving little set of speakers and it's worth making some effort to deliver a good signal to it. But it's not _so_ good that you need to break the bank.

The other thing to look at is how the sound is getting from your player to the soundcard. Windows' default drivers are audibly worse than ASIO (search for ASIO threads to read up on this). In fact it would be best to get ASIO set up before you judge your computer's SQ and make a DAC purchase decision.