Best Quality Sound From A Pc

[Simmo]

Friend of mine is opening a "trendy" shop and wants to play itunes, mp3's, internet radio etc from a PC in the shop. Music is important to him for the vibe in store.

I'm not much of an audiophile but I was thinking of optical out (SPDIF?) from the PC to a stereo amplifier with a set of speakers and a sub. Can anyone recommend

* sound card

* amplifier

* speakers / sub?

and a good local supplier ?

His price range is about 50,000 for the audio equipment and the floor shop area is about 40m2 . Does optical out make much of a difference to analogue out, I've havent seen a stero amp here locally with an optical input.

[autonomous_unit]

I don't know if you need anything that hifi for a shop environment, what with background noise, improper listening arrangement etc.

However, yes a digital link out to a real hifi is a huge step up from other PC solutions. You avoid any of the noise sources inside the PC, avoid any of the compromises of sending the signal down a long wire to get the amp away from the PC (and how compromised are those soundcards in trying to be both a headphone/small unpowered speaker/line level all in one?).

On top of that, you get a better DAC on a hifi receiver. I remember being surprised at how much better my CDs sounded when I replaced the RCA patch cable from a Sony CD changer with a toslink fiber... just the difference between the old Sony's DAC and the new Yamaha receiver's DAC was astoundingly obvious and this was in a poorly arranged apartment with relatively old and tired speakers.

Any old toslink sound adapter would work, i.e. I have a USB to toslink adapter I carried around the world with me... originally purchased at a shop that specialized in attachments for Sony minidisc players. For some odd reason, they seemed to be ahead of the game in digital audio links at the consumer level. An advantage is that you can use this separate audio/DSP port for just the music and avoid having other OS and application beeps and boops going over the loudspeakers by accident.

Any decent home theatre receiver has digital inputs, and often both optical and copper. I've seen many such Yamaha units on display at places like HomePro, which isn't exactly your hifi specialty shop...

[solo siam]

Forget the optical output, unless for some reason he needs 5.1 surround in the shop.

I would suggest a powerful stereo amplifier, say 2 x 80w rms from someone like marantz, denon etc... paired with some nice speakers in the shop (bookshelf type, mordaunt short 902i's are very nice sounding at 8k baht a pair). In terms of music from his PC, he needs a good musical sound card which will probably set him back 2-3k baht, come out of the sound card via normal RCA (may have to use a headphone-RCA type cable) into the amplifier and don't use bass/treble adjustments or any sort of graphic equaliser.

[oooooo]

Friend of mine is opening a "trendy" shop and wants to play itunes, mp3's, internet radio etc from a PC in the shop. Music is important to him for the vibe in store.

I'm not much of an audiophile but I was thinking of optical out (SPDIF?) from the PC to a stereo amplifier with a set of speakers and a sub. Can anyone recommend

* sound card

* amplifier

* speakers / sub?

and a good local supplier ?

His price range is about 50,000 for the audio equipment and the floor shop area is about 40m2 . Does optical out make much of a difference to analogue out, I've havent seen a stero amp here locally with an optical input.

for a small area of 40sqm u really don't need a big system. check out https://www.klipsch.com/products/lists/comp...r-speakers.aspx

this is what i use and the sound quality is excellent and i cant max them out, too loud.

locally available at IT City, phantip plaza, sixth floor.

[richard10365]

Run the sound out from your sound card to your stereo system. Many of the computers sold in Thailand have audio jacks on the front of the computer. The software that comes with it has the ability to change front audio jacks and rear audio jacks into front, rear, woofer, and center speaker. Out put these to the appropriate input to your stereo and it should provide you with awesome sound.

[quiksilva]

Creative's Xfi platinum or fatality sound cards are both excellant and can be brought at most IT City's, Pantip or Fortune. They'll set you back about 10-15000 Baht. In fact if your friend is getting Vista these are the only ones worth getting as there are all sorts of audio problems with anything other than creative audio cards right now.

[Simmo]

Thanks for the responses.

Those Klipsch computer speakers look promising.