You'd be surprised how good these sound. Especially the down firing sub. Non-amplified speakers are only as good as the soundcard behind them. Would these sound like crap with onboard? You bet. I've tested.
It was mostly a distance/space on desk thing. But like i said, i will be looking for a beefier set in the near future.

Sound through my GPU's HDMI connected to a Denon 5.1 receiver, quality is good.
There's no need for a sound card since audio is fed digitally to the receiver which has good quality electronics to process it if needed.

Soundcard? You mean (external) amplifier? (look at Melvinica's post above)

No, i meant exactly what i wrote. Speakers that do not have an internal or are not connected to an external amplifier.

EDIT: As the soundcard behind them = The soundcard you connect them to. Hope it's clear now.

The soundcard's own DAC ofcourse (when speakers are connected). In the AE-5's case, it also features dual op-amps (one per channel) for headphone use.

I haven't had exposed wire speakers since that old 7.1 set i used with my Audigy 2 ZS back in the XP era.

Can you give an example of those passive speakers you talk about?
Every passive speaker I've know (and even the new ones I see online) use speaker wires.

I have an internal PC soundcard that is also a headphone amplifier/DAC. Asus Xonar STX II. It's probably one of the most expensive PC soundcards, but it still pales in comparison to the price of hifi DACs obviously. It's basically poor man's hifi, with some extra convenience/functionality for PC.

I have coupled it with a decent set of cans, Sennheiser Momentum 2.0 (M2) over-the-ear wired version.

I can set the headphone resistance up to >300 ohms, but I don't need that much with my current cans, so it's set to 32-64 ohms. As per the cans' specifications.

The Linux drivers were a part of the kernel and worked right out-of-the-box without needing to do anything. Whereas I really struggled on Windows 10 to find viable decent drivers for Windows 10. The latest version on the Asus official website were several years old, buggy and incredibly taxing on the system.

For non-headphone usage, I do something really simple. Digital through to a decent Samsung soundbar (I actually forgot the model ;) but no it does not have Dolby Atmos) for anything coming straight from the PC (rarely used) or the soundbar through HDMI that's connected to a Google Chromecast Ultra, on a wired connection. This ways I get digital audio with streaming (either one of Netflix, Prime, HBO, Google Play for video, or Tidal for music) with the convenience of using my phone as a remote from my couch. I also chromecast shared stuff on my PC through a DLNA media client and server, though that's very rare these days.

Ok i am starting to lose you. What do you mean ?
Every speaker set uses speaker wires. Exposed or not, makes no difference (except in production costs)

This is what connects to a headphones output on a soundcard:
https://www.swamp.net.au/assets/full/SC-MiniJack_5m.jpg
These are "speaker wires":
https://d3e54emdgoy1fq.cloudfront.net/uploads/image_file/image/175255/large_a436d-PrimeCables-Cab-2791-Speaker-Wires-100ft-Speaker-Wire-14AWG-Enhanced-Loud-Oxygen-Free-Copper-Cable-PrimeCables.jpg
On an extrernal amp you connect 2x2 of these things.


Sometimes they have plugs attached:
[url=https://www.lifewire.com/thmb/l_7EcgxzldQOO4kZJtx8s3JMKhU=/1500x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/connect-speakers-to-receiver-or-amp-3135120-0ebd3c8d2696473cb99bd8df9f4ce4be.png]https://www.lifewire.com/thmb/l_7EcgxzldQOO4kZJtx8s3JMKhU=/1500x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/connect-speakers-to-receiver-or-amp-3135120-0ebd3c8d2696473cb99bd8df9f4ce4be.png[/url]
But that still gives you 4 in total - which doesn't fit on a soundcard amp/output.

Right, now i see what you meant.

I thought you were referring to the OTHER end of the cable. Disregard.

EDIT:A soundcard's DAC is obviously weaker than the one in almost any external amp. So it's normal.

Wireless Logitech G930 headset with the onboard sound card works for me.

Right now i use EVGA Audio Nu card and a Sennheiser Headset and it sounds good enough.

The headset has no mic though so to answer your question, no i can't shout insults nor do i desire to talk in games or play multiplayer games, it's all just for me !

would work for everybody else , but placebo effect is too much for them
best is when they say lossless is better than mp3 :D

Sound Blaster Z connected to a 12 year old Logitech Z5500D. I'll replace the speakers eventually.

The benefits of a discrete sound card? This is the Good Old Games forum. We play old games where Creative has one significant advantage over Realtek:

EAX.

(admittedly simulated using Alchemy, but the Realtek equivalent apparently has difficulty with modern systems).