anyone ever made their own? just curious as i've never been satisfied with the audio quality of 99% of the speakers out there. The most technical aspect im having an issue with is the interface between said speakers and the sound card. so, if anyone has done this (as im sure someone has) would lvoe to pick their brain and see what is necesary to build my own set!
This feature article from Popular Mechanics might come in useful. I'm not enough of an audiophile that a good pair of bookshelf speakers isn't good enough for me, but I used to be a Popular Mechanics subscriber
Yeah you can do it. Actually, the easiest way would be to get a sound card with Coaxial output or RCA(Left/Right), grab yourself a pair of nice speakers and use an old 2-channel(but nice, think Marantz or McIntosh..) reciever. Volia! That said, I'm planning to do that with an old Adcom set in the garage, except instead of speakers, I'll use it to drive my Studio Headphones.
hmm, ok. that article from PM i actually have in front of me. lolz, i get it too. as far as a receiver, i was hoping to be able to get away from using one. i want to be able to use just the outputs on the mobo to go to the speaker set (on their own amp and power supply of course) So i guess what im really looking for is a signal converter to change it from the 1/8" jacks on the mobo to whatever i need it to be on the other end.
Although you can do that, the speakers are going to have some underwhelming sound, unless the amp is damned impressive.
does your sound card have spdif output? might wanna look at some speakers that take spdif if it does. i use the spdif that my macbook has with my ipod hifi and it sounds fantastic
I've built about a dozen or so speakers & subwoofers, and i've run a few from pc's. Both from homebuilt amps and from hi-fi receivers, boom boxes, etc. Most speaker kits i've seen use nice speakers that sound great. And just about any amp kit is meant to work from line level, and i think all soundcards have a line out on them. All you need to connect to most prebuilt amps to a pc, is a cheap 3.5 > rca adaptor, or just solder up your own convertor cable. You may also need a thick cable to connect the earths/chassis of both the pc & the amp, to eliminate any backround noise/fuzz. Having the two as close together as possible so that the earth lead is preferably under 10cm is best for noise reduction.
Mva's got it, I would suggest 3.5>RCA, but from my own experience having a nice reciver makes things all the better. The thick cable is basically a ground cable I'm sure.
