Not too long ago, Cambridge Soundworks was a respected mid-range speaker manufacturer. In fact, I get their catalog, and they still make some reasonably nice speakers in the $2000/speaker range.
The thing is, Creative bought CSW to legitimize itself as a "home theater" brand, and now their low end stuff (touted as high end to PC-types) is basically junk.
I agree about Bose, completely. Also avoid Sony anything. Sony basically makes junk. Expensive junk with useless features.
Finally, a real HT setup is far, far better than flavor of the week computer audio crap.
As for the other...
The versajack is capable of delivering undecoded (digital) AC-3 to an external device such as an HT receiver or a set of digital speakers for two reasons: 1.) Not having a hardware decoder on the card makes it cheaper. 2.) Decoding AC-3 is a hit to your PC's CPU and 3.) Most real HT equipment already has dolby digital decoding builtin.
Today, it's possible to buy DVD players with internal DD decoders, that can be connected to inexpensive receivers that DON'T decode dolby digital. However, it's far, far more likely that your DVD player just doesn't care what spews out its outputs, because even modest receivers can handle the common digital formats.
