hilbert25

What soundcard did your friend have? That matters a lot more than the speakers. What player? Either the soundcard or the software player need to know how to decode dolby digital or dts for analog speakers to work.

Now a little tutorial on soundcards:

Difference between mic in and line in: The mic in is supposed to be amplified.

Lines 1, 2, 3: 1 is front, 2, is rear, 3 is sub/center. They are probably color coded on the speakers, but those colors might not match your outputs. Each analog line out carries information for 2 channels. The 3rd one is a little strange because it's both analog center/sub and digital out. What that means is this: it can be set in drivers to either be analog out, or it can output AC-3 (dvd audio) to a reciever. Now AC-3 will not be used for games, so it would only be used for movies.

I don't know about that version of soundblaster, but older versions could not decode AC-3 meaning watching movies in analog would only be 2 channel. If your audigy can decode AC-3, then you can listen to movies with full surround sound, if it can't you can only play games with surround sound. For music, music is 2 channel only (unless it's sacd, or dvd-audio, but neither is really decodeable by most computer sound cards). Thus you won't really hear any surround in music, you can clone channels or do silly dsp things, but it won't be surround.

I don't know how those logitech's work, but you probably don't want to use matrix mode when watching movies. It's meant as a dsp for stereo, it looks like. They don't have the manual, so I can't say.

If you want to try a game with great surround support, see if you can get a demo of the original Thief. That game had some of the best audio ever.