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I only listen at work. I plug my STAX SRD-X and SRX-III directly into the CD-ROM's headphone jack. People look at me as if I'm nuts, but who cares?
Here's a question we last asked about a year ago: With the proliferation of high-resolution sound cards and other computer audio peripherals over the last couple of years, have you begun using your computer to play music?
I listen to music on my computer, but it is a far cry from the big stereo, and it certainly isn't "high-rez." The PC is only for passive listening or background noisekind of like a cheap radio you might keep in your workshop or garage, and about as effective as a white noise machine or chewing gum.
Yes I do. MP3, streaming radio broadcasts, and CD from both the ROM drive and HD. In the future, I plan to get an outboard AD converter and start making CDR copies of some of the LPs I own. The biggest problem with computer playback is the loss of fidelity compared to my stand alone system. Via the computer,16/44 CD playback exemplifies all of the bad aspects of the medium. For MP3 I've found that encoding at 392kb/s provides quality that is perfect for the car, along with a vast increase in storage capacity. Long term plan is to have a networked music server.
I listen to music all the time on my computer. As long as I am in my basement, my computer is on and the music is playing! I spent almost $1000 on my computer's audio hardware, and I got my money's worth in the first week, so you know I listen to it a lot.
As a tool, the computer is a useful sampling device for listening to new music. If i like the music (not the sound), i will buy the CD and play it on my audiophile system. I see no reason to use the computer except as a sampler, or as background music while im at it surfing. Why did i pay bucks for my audiophile system if i dont enjoy listening to it as my primary source?
That Windows start up jingle sounds great on B&W speakers and a Sound Blaster Audigy ;) I'm not into digital speakers. For about 5 bucks Radio Shack has stereo phono to RCA adapters. Just be sure to get video shielded speakers if you plan on having the speakers close to you monitor.
I currently listen to two songs on my computer that are only available as MP3 downloads. As soon as the artist releases his CD containing these songs, I will purchase the CD for listening on my audio system and delete the MP3s from my computer.
Long ago I hooked up my sound card to a vintage Kenwood integrated amp (their first solid state model) and a couple of decent mini-monitors. Yet, with a home office and my Martin-Logans in the next room, I really don't listen to music much from the computer. Mostly just for streaming video, internet "radio", etc. Yet, I DO see the potential if I were in an office somewhere "divorced" from my beloved "e-stats".
I use a hard disk playback front end. All CD's are encoded using exact audio copy into wave format played via Apple's itunes firewire interface with motu pro audio device to mcintosh mc 2102 to living voice avatar obx loudspeakers. I figure if it's good enough for musicians to record onto, it's good enough to use for playback.