USING A COMPUTER AS HIGH QUALITY MUSIC SOURCE

All recordings on this site are chosen to be both best performances of great pieces and well engineered and most have won awards for both. To get their benefits you should play them back through good sound systems - either good earphones or headphones or a good home stereo. But no matter how you listen your music comes from a computer, or smart phone or tablet so this is a guide to how to get good sound out of a streaming music service. This site uses Spotify as it is the most usable and has a high quality stream.

There are three ways to listen to music that is playing on your computer or being streamed over the web other than through the little speakers that come with computers. You can’t appreciate the full dynamic range of music unless you have a decent sound system connected to your computer. You can 1. use good headphones, 2. connect your computer to your home music system or 3. buy an auxiliary computer multimedia speaker system.
- Earphones/Headphones. Generally the more expensive the better. There are many sites on the web that evaluate them. The Grado headphones that go over the ear and cost about $70-90 get great reviews but headphones and earphones are a personal thing. Monoprice has an excellent over the ear pair for about $20.

- Auxiliary powered multimedia speakers –These are usually three-piece units, two speakers near the monitor and a woofer under the desk. These have an amplifier built in because the amplifier inside your computer is not powerful enough to drive large speakers. There are hundreds of these units on the market Wirecutter usually has the current best buys.

- Connect your computer to a home music system This will work if your home stereo and computer are in the same room and your computer isn't too far from it. Each computer is different but to connect a computer to a home music system generally you need a stereo cable between them with the right plugs on each end. Tell RadioShack what you have and they will sell you the right cables and connectors. Your desktop computer or laptop will have a headphone jack and may also have “Line-out” and “Line-in” connections and either can serve as a signal source for your home stereo or entertainment system. You may need an adaptor to convert the headphone mini plug to an RCA cable as illustrated below.

Once you have your signal on an RCA stereo cable that will reach your home stereo or AV system you can plug it into any free audio input like CD, Auxiliary, tape or anything else except the one marked “phono” as that one only will alter the signal unlike the other input jacks. Usually it is easier to use the auxiliary input (AUX) as modern receivers sometimes have dozens of different audio inputs all obscurely marked and if you use CD or AUX then it will be easy to remember. Sometimes audio video receivers have audio jacks on the front for camcorders or TVs and you might be able to use them. There is only one caveat when you make changes in jacks and this is important - remember to turn the volume all the way down before you connect or disconnect a plug and then ease the volume back up so you don’t surprise yourself with the loud noises when you connect or disconnect things. Don’t reverse left and right channels or red and black wires. Usually everything related to audio will be in pairs and plainly marked in red and white. Once connected to your stereo you can play music on your computer and the sound will come through your speakers on your stereo or audio video system and the volume control on your computer will control the sound. Consult your manuals if you are connecting it to a surround sound home music system, as you may need to consider different settings when you switch between simple stereo music and movies with surround sound. Audiovisual receivers can easily be switched from playing music to playing movies. Some computers will need to have their alerts and beeps suppressed if you intend to work on your computer while listening.

DAC The best computer sound comes from bypassing the audio chip in your phone or laptop or desktop and using a DAC which substitutes custom audio chips for the cheap ones on your computer. To use one you plug a DAC device into a USB port of your computer and then a headphone or RCA jacks into it. If you are using a desktop or laptop it is straightforward but if you are using a phone or tablet you have to check to see if your USB port has enough power for the particular DAC you are using.



Dragonfly DAC plugged into computer and connected to RCA jacks which go to a stereo system across the room.  

 


 There are also ways to wirelessly transfer sound from a computer to a home music system via Bluetooth and certain Apple devices but they are beyond the scope of this article and expensive and not for beginners. Also there are High Definition HD sound sources that are available which require specialized DACs and software which require specialized knowledge to implement. If you choose really high quality recordings like this site describes and play them back through standard equipment and software they will usually sound better than most esoteric HD applications.

Home music systems
If You don't have a good stereo system to connect your computer to here is a good inexpensive one that will provide good sound.

Turntable: Music hall USB1 $249 This can also convert Vinyl to MP3 and has  built in pre-amp. (To play records either the turntable or amplifier has to have a preamp built in and most amps  don't have them anymore so if you change the components below make sure that you have a preamp somewhere or you will have to buy one separately or your records will sound lousy.  

Amplifier: NAD 3020 $499 List $399 street
                   NAD C 316BEE $379 $299 street

 Bookshelf Speakers: Pioneer SP-BS22LR $129 pair
 Powered Subwoofer: Pioneer 8"SW-8MK2 $159

Note:If you get the 3020 it has Bluetooth built in and a DAC too, so supposedly you can send music from a smart phone to your stereo without a wire and don't need a separate DAC either. But I have not tried this myself. Buy your electronics together from one dealer like Best Buy or Crutchfield so you will have long term technical support.