PC sound - bookshelves or desktop speakers?

[Shuvi McTupya]

Sometimes I am glad I am a bit of a peasant

I run a laptop as a desktop (laptop is hidden away) and I realised I would need some external speakers so I bought this set up from the car boot sale for £5 and for the job it is doing, I really can't fault it!!
If I listened to music much louder than these things can go, I would start thinking of myself as an annoying neighbour! But I do live in an exceptionally quiet little cluster of houses.

[TameRacingDriver]

Shuvi McTupya said:

Sometimes I am glad I am a bit of a peasant

I run a laptop as a desktop (laptop is hidden away) and I realised I would need some external speakers so I bought this set up from the car boot sale for £5 and for the job it is doing, I really can't fault it!!
If I listened to music much louder than these things can go, I would start thinking of myself as an annoying neighbour! But I do live in an exceptionally quiet little cluster of houses.

I'm glad you're happy but it's not about loudness, but sound quality. I've heard plenty of these systems you speak of and they are adequate. Not something I would want to genuinely enjoy music on. A half decent proper hifi would destroy those or any other cookie cutter desktop speaker system for that matter.

As we're on a car website, your system is a Ford Fiesta versus an Aston Martin (hifi).

[Shuvi McTupya]

TameRacingDriver said:

I'm glad you're happy but it's not about loudness, but sound quality. I've heard plenty of these systems you speak of and they are adequate. Not something I would want to genuinely enjoy music on. A half decent proper hifi would destroy those or any other cookie cutter desktop speaker system for that matter.

As we're on a car website, your system is a Ford Fiesta versus an Aston Martin (hifi).

Yeah i am aware of that, many years ago i used to install medium to high end audio systems in Houses in California so i do appreciate a good system. At the same time I am well aware of the huge amount of snake oil in the industry.

I used to make up cables for the more 'discerning' clients and they were costed at $90 a foot. I honestly couldn't tell the difference between them and a standard decent quality shop bought cable.

My boss who owned the audio company came into my house once and commented how nice my stereo sounded and it was made up of very budget components, with $90 a foot audio cables, because why not when they are free

[TameRacingDriver]

Ha yeah I know what you mean, lots of BS and voodoo in this hobby. Cables are one of the worst for it. I think mine were £2 a meter from richer sounds, never felt the need to upgrade those! And I'm sure we've all been sold a line about HDMI cables that "should be 10-20% of the value of your TV"

I think there's a sweet spot for most with hifi and nowadays I think that spot is quite a lot lower than it once was in so much as the quality of lower end components has massively improved in recent years, you get a lot for your money now. This is generally a good thing but some might argue its detracted from hifi as a hobby as its now a lot easier to get great results.

[Shuvi McTupya]

Anyone need an audio cable? Should be £300 with the connectors..yours for £150

• mods , this is not a real advert*

[vsonix]

tenohfive said:

2. Mini amp - Lepy 2024A or similar plus some bookshelf speakers, Q3020's or 3010's should be in budget.

I have an absolutely cracking little system which I put together using various cheap stuff I bought online. I've got two 'bookshelf' speakers, they're Acoustic Solutions ones and are technically the rears from a 5:1 system but they are lovely and clear sounding, the top end on them is lovely and defined with little to no brittleness or breakup. Those are powered by a £7 'Lvpin' LP838 amp which is very similar to the LePai/Lepy one you mention - I think they are powered by the same transistors. Then to fill in the bottom end I have a Vibe Alpha 10" home cinema sub - a little bit overpowered although I previously had a Vibe Optisound 8" which was perfectly ample. Everything is on spikes so nice and isolated, and the sub is tucked out of sight so people are genuinely surprised when they hear what a massive, rich sound I have considering all that's visible is a couple of plain-looking little bookshelf monitors.

The sound quality really is champagne quality at beer money. In a blind listening test it sounds like I've spent several hundred quid. I hardly ever use my actual Tannoy studio monitors any more because this setup is generally better (mind you I've never tried my studio monitors with a HPF and all the bottom end routed to the Vibe so I could be missing a trick there).

The only slight downside is it seems really hard to find any equivalent cheap mini amp that handles 5:1 as I'd like to get rid of the hulking great AV receiver in my lounge and replace it with something as compact and discreet as this but I can't find a surround amp from any of these Chinese manufacturers.

[tenohfive]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

£190 for the speakers, £19 for the DAC. So £209. I could have run a 3.5mm to RCA cable and avoided the DAC for about £6 but it seems a worthwhile upgrade to the overall system to use a separate DAC rather than the onboard one.
I'm not counting cables as they're a) cheap and b) things I've either already got in my drawer, or should have.

I'd say it was a relatively mild case of budget creep - and if I'd gone for the Monitor 50's (ruled out by SWMBO on looks grounds) it would have been less. It's actually meant that I've got a full sized cabinet with the acoustic benefits that offers, and what's more - she basically pushed me into the more expensive option...what's a man to do?

The one thing that saved me money is being able to use my AVR and more specifically being able to use a second zone that's independent of my main zone. Having 75W/channel instead of a mini-amp is a bonus, I can use a wider variety of sources and I can control everything from my phone or tablet by app. It's more than I need but also features I'll use.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but from looking around it seems like people keep hold of passive speakers for a very long time as they're fundamentally reliable and unlikely to go wrong. In the man-maths world I think that's justified as an investment.

[geeks]

So off the back of this thread I have been obsessing over my options (thanks OP ), similar requirements to the OP only on a tight, tight budget, £120 not a penny more (if we can keep it under 100 all the better)

Choices are: (Active)

https://www.richersounds.com/tibo-plus-mini.html

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mackie-CR3-inch-Monitor-S...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B071YV97LK/ref...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01NCTGH9M/ref...

OR

https://www.richersounds.com/hi-fi/standmount-spea...

Plus some kind of DAC+AMP, possibly the one suggested by the OP: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0725PJQQV/ref...

I am leaning more towards the Missions with an Amp.. Thoughts?

[Shuvi McTupya]

geeks said:

I am leaning more towards the Missions with an Amp.. Thoughts?

Just looking at that little amp , I noticed they have upgraded it with this version for a couple of quid more.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nobsound-NS-10G-Bluetooth...

[tenohfive]

The reviews suggested the upgrade was a bit flakey.

If I hadn't re-used my AVR I'd be looking at the older Nobsound and then whatever the best speakers I could afford were.
Those Missions look like a good shout to me. If you're a Richer Sounds VIP member (which costs nothing) you get £10 off orders over £100 though; Q 3020's are £120, so £135 total. Beyond budget but worth considering. Or 3010's (if you can find something to take it over £100 in store), they'll come in at £115 total. It does sound like the Q3020's are worth the extra £20 though if you can stretch or wait a tad longer.

[TameRacingDriver]

I’d definitely stretch to the 3020 for £100 if you can, or go second hand as you’ll get more bang for your buck.

[Shuvi McTupya]

tenohfive said:

The reviews suggested the upgrade was a bit flakey.

If I hadn't re-used my AVR I'd be looking at the older Nobsound and then whatever the best speakers I could afford were.
.

This thread has got me thinking about beefing up the TV audio without going crazy and I have a pair of these old things gathering dust in that attic (dvd's added for scale) .



Maybe I should get one of those little amps hidden behind the TV at a preset volume and mount the AE's on the wall. Any opinions on whether that little amp will do the speakers justice?

Edited by Shuvi McTupya on Friday 7th September 16:14

[geeks]

Some stuff is ordered, it shall arrive on the morrow. Pics to follow once its all hooked up. No Missions, none in stock locally so chose something a little cheaper!

[Shuvi McTupya]

geeks said:

Some stuff is ordered, it shall arrive on the morrow. Pics to follow once its all hooked up. No Missions, none in stock locally so chose something a little cheaper!

Cool

[TonyRPH]

Shuvi McTupya said:

This thread has got me thinking about beefing up the TV audio without going crazy and I have a pair of these old things gathering dust in that attic (dvd's added for scale) .



Maybe I should get one of those little amps hidden behind the TV at a preset volume and mount the AE's on the wall. Any opinions on whether that little amp will do the speakers justice?

Edited by Shuvi McTupya on Friday 7th September 16:14

Ah, AE100's - I have their bigger brother, the AE109, but have also previously owned AE105 and the 100's.

They need quite a beefy amp to give their best, forget about those puny el cheapo Chinese class 'D' amps.

You want a decent transistor amp, at least 50w per channel.

[Shuvi McTupya]

TonyRPH said:

Ah, AE100's - I have their bigger brother, the AE109, but have also previously owned AE105 and the 100's.

They need quite a beefy amp to give their best, forget about those puny el cheapo Chinese class 'D' amps.

You want a decent transistor amp, at least 50w per channel.

Yeah i was afraid of that, I still have the Yamaha surround amp that they used to be hooked up too (and all the rest of the speakers) but it is a big beast..maybe i should break it out. I could always hook up the sub to the B channel for when a bit of extra oomph is required...

I remember when i used to run these speakers i would occasionally feel a puff of air out of them from about 8 feet away!

Edited by Shuvi McTupya on Friday 7th September 16:51

[geeks]

Well it's all here and setup. I think the Amp isn't man enough for the job depending on what I have on. However I am being very critical because its actually excellent and I am addicted to lossless music now

Pics to follow once I have tidied my desk lol!

[Shuvi McTupya]

I have never heard of lossless music up until just this second.

Can it be downloaded or do you have to do something techie to make it, or do you have to buy it?

[TonyRPH]

Shuvi McTupya said:

I have never heard of lossless music up until just this second.

Can it be downloaded or do you have to do something techie to make it, or do you have to buy it?

It can be downloaded (look for .flac files) but you have to pay for the music of course.

FLAC = Free Lossless Audio Codec

What is FLAC?

You can also encode your own CDs using flac.

There's absolutely no point in transcoding mp3 to flac.

[Shuvi McTupya]

TonyRPH said:

It can be downloaded (look for .flac files) but you have to pay for the music of course.

FLAC = Free Lossless Audio Codec

What is FLAC?

You can also encode your own CDs using flac.

There's absolutely no point in transcoding mp3 to flac.

Thanks, so I have found a website that converts audio files to FLAC but it is unable to convert a track from an audio CD. I assume i need to convert it from CDA to something else and then to Flac, but would it then sound better, or worse than it was when i started??