Give your laptop sound system a boost

[Looper]

I play all my music at home from my laptop as do most folk these days I think. Most of my music is FLAC lossless and some of it is hi-fi 196Khz vinyl 24 bit. My hifi gear is all good quality stuff: Wharfedale W40 speakers and an old 70's German analogue amplifier. I got to thinking that sound quality-wise the weak link in this system must surely be the generic soundcard in my laptop so I got googling. Turns out you can get USB connected DACs (Digital to Analogue Converters) which are designed for hifi quality. They are not cheap though and seem to start around $150.

However with a bit more googling I also found that you can buy the PCM2704 USB soundcard for just a few dollars.



This little beaut sounds a mile spankier than the motherboard soundcard on my laptop and for less than 10 bucks it is a no brainer. Just buy it, sit back and turn up the volume. Your lossless sounds collection will leap out of your speakers and grab you by the goolies.

[Dillinger]

You listen to tunes through your laptop's speakers?

[Dragonfly]

does that work with a BT speaker ?

[Looper]

^^Cable from the motherboard sound-card headphone jack to the amp+speakers.

But now... cable from the USB DAC to the amp+speakers.

This cheap USB card makes a big difference to the sound, which was not bad to start with.