[Emmett62]

planar magnetic desktop speakers ?
thats wicked 

 

[Sal1950]

  I am using a set of 2.1 Monsoon Planar Media 9 Speakers from 2005, not sure if this counts as old or ancient but I still love their sound even if they have to be perfectly aligned for each ear. I gave up on sound cards in 2006 and have been listening through headphones for the last 9 years.http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a68/Groovy_GI/Office/P1010129_zpsatjwma6a.jpg

Kool, Hold onto them, they have to be the last surviving pair. Most let the smoke out in the first few weeks.   JK

 

[obobskivich]

If your looking for a very high quality analog sound source from the digital music files on your computer, the SOTA path for that today is by using an outboard dac, etc.

Agreed - a good soundcard can be a fine source, but an outboard DAC/amp/etc can be a fine upgrade or supplement as well, especially if you're hoping to add extra functionality/connectivity (e.g. balanced outputs, remote control, preamp, etc).

Kool, Hold onto them, they have to be the last surviving pair. Most let the smoke out in the first few weeks.   JK

They show up on ebay relatively often, the 5.1 systems are probably the rarest, but none of them are unattainable. Sound was pretty decent from what I remember, but they're still ultimately small speakers with a small subwoofer (if I remember right its only like a 6" driver) - just fine for a desktop, but that's about where it ends.

 

[sonci]

The problem with soundcards other than Emi noise or other interferences, IME is Power, you just limited to pc power supply for whatever good it is, it's just a switching psu,
Get a mediocre Dac, put a beefy linear psu, and yo'll get the max out of that Dac,
The latest digital amplifiers with incorporeted Dac are very good, you can try,
Nad D3020, is a good choice..

 

[obobskivich]

The problem with soundcards other than Emi noise or other interferences, IME is Power, you just limited to pc power supply for whatever good it is, it's just a switching psu,
Get a mediocre Dac, put a beefy linear psu, and yo'll get the max out of that Dac,
The latest digital amplifiers with incorporeted Dac are very good, you can try,
Nad D3020, is a good choice..

I've never understood the audiophile aversion to high quality, regulated, switching PSUs - which is exactly what most modern computers offer these days. This isn't really saying we should all use PCs or all not use PCs, but I just don't get the aversion to PCs as "a very bad thing" - 20 or 30 years ago that argument made some sense, but today it just seems quaint.

 

[coli]

I've never understood the audiophile aversion to high quality, regulated, switching PSUs - which is exactly what most modern computers offer these days. This isn't really saying we should all use PCs or all not use PCs, but I just don't get the aversion to PCs as "a very bad thing" - 20 or 30 years ago that argument made some sense, but today it just seems quaint.

Lots of audiophile equipment can not handle input power noise properly. This includes megabuck ones too.
 
Linear power supply is actually very bad for audio, they reduce power factor and dynamics the more of them you have. They also starts to interfere with each other which is why you don't see audiophile multichannel setups (besides the snake oil prices).  SMPS doesn't have that problem, they have noise issue which destroys the audiophile equipments mentioned above...
 
Nowadays my setup is almost all SMPS. Sounded better than ever.

 

[sterling1]

I'm old, my HT system is old. Only thing relatively new is my laptop. I wanted to get music from it to the old home theatre system and saw the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi HD external sound card as a solution. For the most part, it's used as a USB to S/PDIF converter. I also use it to digitize LP's. At any rate, this device, which was purchased sometime back in 2012, provides the functionality I was expecting; and I have been so satisfied with it that my shopping for such things is over. I think this external sound card is still sold today for about $89.00. I also purchased an Airport Express which I use via Airport to play music from iPhone and iPad to home theatre. It works wonderfully too. That's to say, each of these devices supports a high quality listening experience from iTunes player.

 

[Sal1950]

 
I'm old, my HT system is old. Only thing relatively new is my laptop. I wanted to get music from it to the old home theatre system and saw the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi HD external sound card as a solution. For the most part, it's used as a USB to S/PDIF converter. I also use it to digitize LP's. At any rate, this device, which was purchased sometime back in 2012, provides the functionality I was expecting; and I have been so satisfied with it that my shopping for such things is over. I think this external sound card is still sold today for about $89.00. I also purchased an Airport Express which I use via Airport to play music from iPhone and iPad to home theatre. It works wonderfully too. That's to say, each of these devices supports a high quality listening experience from iTunes player.

If the system pleases you, it's the perfect answer to your needs, ENJOY!

 

[obobskivich]

Lots of audiophile equipment can not handle input power noise properly. This includes megabuck ones too.

So then its overpriced hype-train junk and should be discarded. :veryevil: That said (and jibes aside), it would be a non-issue if you're talking about powering your PC-based device (e.g. sound-card, USB transport, etc) from quality SMPS (which, nowadays, have low noise but again, this is not the issue) because you're only seeing those device's output (e.g. S/PDIF, analog line audio, AES, etc), which is quite clean (be it analog or digital, and again I'm speaking in generalities) coming from a device with clean design and internal power. I get that, for example, trying to re-wire an old receiver to run off a modern SMPS PSU would be an undertaking and may create issues, and that's not what I'm arguing for; what's never made sense to me is when you have a nice computer with a nice SMPS and instead of using that for a lot of clean, high-current power to run your [whatever] that's capable of being run that way (e.g. soundcard) you buy some expensive external linear PSU with zero regulation).

I'm old, my HT system is old. Only thing relatively new is my laptop. I wanted to get music from it to the old home theatre system and saw the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi HD external sound card as a solution. For the most part, it's used as a USB to S/PDIF converter. I also use it to digitize LP's. At any rate, this device, which was purchased sometime back in 2012, provides the functionality I was expecting; and I have been so satisfied with it that my shopping for such things is over. I think this external sound card is still sold today for about $89.00. I also purchased an Airport Express which I use via Airport to play music from iPhone and iPad to home theatre. It works wonderfully too. That's to say, each of these devices supports a high quality listening experience from iTunes player.

Beautiful ES gear you've got there! I'd agree with keeping it as long as it'll keep working.