Playing iTunes Library Through Amp/Speakers

[bigalxyz]

Hello forum,

Looking for a bit of advice. I've got a large library of music in iTunes. Most of it is in the Apple Lossless format (some obscure stuff is in low bitrate MP3 files, but there aren't many of those).

At the moment I'm just playing it through a set of little £30 speakers plugged into the headphone socket on the back of my PC, but as you can imagine, the sound quality is not all that good.

What options do I have to connect up to a good quality amp and speakers?

The PC doesn't have a separate sound card, it's just from the motherboard. So even with a good amp & speakers, I doubt if the analogue signal from the headphone socket is particularly good (is that fair comment?).

Do I buy some kind of DAC for the PC and then connect that to an amp?

Or do I buy a sound card for the PC which outputs a digital signal and put that into an amp that can accept digital signals (like the Yamaha surround sound amp I once had could do)?

Or is there some other way of doing it?

Have looked around on the internet but it's still not obvious what the best way to approach this is.

Grateful for any advice anyone can offer!

Thanks,

Alan.

 

[bigalxyz]

ps I'm on a relatively modest budget. Am happy to hunt down amp & speakers myself (am a previous owner of Arcam, Mission, etc. and I like that stuff), just need advice on the "getting the sound out of the computer" bit!

 

[Alantiggger]

Your motherboard doesn't have an optical out nor coaxial out ?

See here this may help : http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2009/03/25/how-to-connect-your-pc-to-your-hi-fi/

or maybe get a usb soundcard and connect it to your amp with toslink or coaxial maybe ?

something like this maybe:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/External-6-Channel-5-1-S-PDIF-Optical-USB-2-0-Sound-Card-Audio-For-PC-Laptop-/190826293819?pt=UK_Computing_ComputerComponents_SoundCards&hash=item2c6e222a3b

or

fit a card like this:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Trust-5-1-surround-sound-card-SC-5200-/281099013787?pt=UK_Computing_ComputerComponents_SoundCards&hash=item4172ce8e9b

Or something similar but this will at least give you an idea. You can of course buy similar and for all different prices as with most things.

 

[bigalxyz]

Thank you.

No, PC doesn't appear to have a digital optical/coax output, just a mini jack socket, which is what I'm using at the moment.

If a decent PCI-e sound card can produce a good quality analogue output (ie if it has a good DAC stage), I might go for that & then see if I can find a secondhand amp/speaker pair (I used to have an Arcam Alpha 9 amp and Mission 752 speakers - would be v happy to go for something like that secondhand).

Alan.