[Deadfan]

Hi,

I've been reading here on the issue (and searching), but think I need some help on the basics. Generally, I'm looking for the most sensible way to get decent sound out of my laptop into (1) headphones while traveling; and (2) out to an AUX In to my solid state receiver and speakers for home listening.

Currently, I use a laptop in a docking station as my main computer at work, carry it with me on business trips and bring it with me on weekends away. I'm getting a new one next week - a HP6710B. The laptop is the main tool I use to rip my music from CDs using EAC into WAV files, then convert them to FLAC lossless files. Then I transfer to FLACs to my IAudio X5 30GB MP3 player for playback through headphones, through the receiver's auxiliary input, or (hopefully soon) through an auxiliary input into my car audio systems.

My headphones are Etymotic 4P (mostly) and Alessandro MS-1 (less often).

I have yet to figure out a permanent music storage solution, but was planning to store FLACs on an external hard drive.

So, basically, I want to be able to rip the music once into FLAC, and then have it on the laptop an transfer it other places for use and storage.

What I found when traveling is that my X5 battery life is about an hour (awful), so on plane trips, I just listen through the laptop once the X5 dies. (I'll have to address that battery issue someday). Therefore, in addition to the X5, I'm interested in playing music through the laptop into headphones. Although I often play music from the X5 through an aux input to the receiver, it's only 30GB, so I'm also thinking I'd like to be able to just hook the laptop up to the Aux In and have access to more music.

My main question is -- what are good approaches for the laptop sound? I read here about external DACs, USB DACs, PCMCIA, external soundcards, etc. I'm not sure what they all are, but my sense is that I should find something like that that is generally portable and can be used to accomplish what I've described above. So, two channel stereo if most important, but 5.1 woudl be OK of I ever watch a movie on a plane (although I don't quite get what 5.1 can do when you only have headphones).

Budget isn't the main concern. I guess I'd just like a simple solution that makes sense.

Thanks, Mike

 

[HFat]

Well, there's are a few points that are worth making:

First, as to your gear question, I'm assuming you're not happy with the sound of your laptop. A PCMCIA solution probably would be the most portable but I opted for USB myself because my laptop's stock soundcard is good enough for the odd occasion when I'm not using a DAP portably. I chose my USB soundcard for transportability: it's sturdy (it got dropped a few times) and it runs on USB (no batteries to manage). I also didn't want to bother with an amp so I made sure my soundcard can drive pretty much every conventional headphone.

Your X5's battery could last longer if you put lossy files on it. Come on... can you REALLY tell the difference?

You shouldn't rip to WAV: it's a waste of time. If you ripped directly to FLAC, EAC could tag your files for you.

Depending on how much music you have, it might be possible to upgrade your laptop's hard drive so that you wouldn't need external storage (except for backups... you run regular backups, right?). If not now, then maybe next year as larger drives come out.

5.1 to headphones should be done with Dolby Headphones or some such IMHO. There are devices that implement that stuff in hardware but it can also be done in software.