Hello

I've bought an iMac but would like to listen to some decent music instead of listening to the built-in speakers. I've already done some research but I just can't find out what equipment I need besides the speakers. Concerning the speakers there's also something that's not perfectly clear for me: passive or active ones? Some say that active ones are the way to go when you're on a tight budget, others say that they are unpleasant to listen to and that you should only buy them when you produce music.

And what about the suggestion in this blog post? Here he buys active speakers that are connected to an "audio interface" which are on their turn connected to his iMac.

Before I start looking further for speakers and the rest I need to know what equipment I actually need.
My budget is about 500-600 dollars.

Thanks

If you are buying new then the most accurate sound for your money will almost certainly be obtained with active speakers from a music shop. Whether you want accurate or audiophile is a decision for you to make but, given your budget, audiophile is not really an option.

Do you want to put small speakers close to you at a desk (they would sound better raised on shelf) or to sit in a chair with the speakers filling the room with sound like a hi-fi? If the latter then one should look to larger speakers.

Whether it is cost effective on your budget to spend $100 or so on an external sound card depends on the quality of the internal sound card, how many sources you have and, to some extent, whether you can reach a volume control. For example, a desk setup with a volume control on the front of active speakers would be useful in this regard. Many, probably most, internal sound cards are fine these days in the sense that you would you not be able to identify it in a controlled listening test against an external card (your blogger would appear to be something of a marketing victim in this regard). But I don't know in your particular case.

This depends on the requirements of the speakers but given you want a desk setup and to buy new, an amplifier plus passive speakers does not look the right way to go unless there are other factors that push you in this direction.

Why is this not the right way?

• Dynaudio
• Monitor Audio (I'm not really sure about this one, probably confusing this one with M-Audio.)
• M-Audio
• Audio Engine
• Mackie (I do not know if these are consumer oriented - for listening-, they are certainly used for music production.)
• Yamaha
• Wharfedale
• Adam Audio
• Alesis

If I go for the active speakers I will invest all my money on the speakers since these are the most important elements. An external soundcard can be bought later.

M-Audio

This will limit the sound quality because size is a requirement for deep bass and low distortion at high volumes, reflections off the desk and monitor will confuse the sound sources and sitting close to the speakers will skew the direct/indirect sound ratio.

If you are going to place the speakers on the desk then a realistic upper limit is probably defined by something like a pair of Adam A5s:

Because of the dominance of audiophile nonsense there is almost no reliable source a consumer can turn to for this sort of information. If you have access to a good external sound card then you can check yourself if you can hear a difference or if the difference you can hear is worth $100 to you.

' date='Nov 17 2008, 14:00' post='599715']
Do you know that you can connect the output of your laptop to your current hifi equipment, and that requires just a 3 to 5$ cable?

' date='Nov 17 2008, 14:00' post='599715']
What makes an active speaker "active", is that it is driven by itself. Driven means powered, and powered means amplified.Active speakers have an integrated amplifier built in, so the input is AC power + line-level signal input.

' date='Nov 17 2008, 14:00' post='599715']
In your case, active speakers make sense. Studio Monitors do not.

As you said, you plan to listen to music, not to "work the sound".

> One thing that is still not clear is what the difference is between active and
> powered speakers.

Strictly nothing, they both mean speakers with amplifiers, but they do have slightly different associations when used in marketing.

[...]Active/powered speakers/monitors come in essentially two flavours: those with an active crossover and one amplifier per drive unit (i.e. 2 amplifiers per speaker) and those with a passive crossover and only one amplifier per speaker. The former is the more accurate but more expensive way (usually) to do things and is another factor making active speakers preferable to a separate amplifier plus passive speakers.

Do you think most people would be prepared to have speakers that size on their desk? Speaking for myself, I do not want any monitors on my desk and so usually do without or put them on a shelf above the desk where they sound better and their size is less of a problem.

> indirect ratio. [...] Nevertheless, nearfiled monitors are tuned to minimize this
> problem with nearfield listening.

What is done to achieve this?

Indirect sound plays an important role in how we hear and enjoy music and, because of this, concert halls will be designed to have higher levels of indirect sound than, say, lecture theatres. The role of indirect sound when listening to a stereo signal which usually contains a degree of indirect sound cues and where the listening room is different to the performance room is somewhat different but hearing indirect sound is still necessary if music is to sound normal/natural.

Some may prefer listening in this way as some prefer the even more unnatural sound of listening on headphones but it may be wise not to lose sight of what is normal/natural and why.

> A7s have separate volume controls for each channel, which is not very convenient.

The A5s have a wire that goes from one speaker to the other in order to link the volume controls. It is not something a speaker designed to be used as a studio monitor would want but it is something speakers designed to be used on a desktop might want.

I am afraid that you or I do not get to decide what is normal/natural. It is decided by how sound propagates in rooms and how the human brain interprets the direct and indirect sound in rooms.

A stereo still sounds like a stereo because insufficient information on the indirect sound of real instruments can be included in stereo signal (but a lot more can in a binaural signal).

Multi-channel audio is a way to include more of the indirect sound field into the signal and, in this case, a room with less indirect sound of its own is going to be preferable (assuming the engineer/producer uses the extra channels for this purpose).

I see your point. Nevertheless, I prefer the spatially well defined, transparent, and timbrally very accurate reproduction offered by nearfield monitors, with emphasis on the indirect sound recorded in the recording location (or added in the processing in a controlled fashion) . And I myself perceive it as more natural than sound blown up with poorly controlled reflections of the listening room whose acoustic parameters have nothing to do with those of the recording location, with inevitable coloration from these reflections and possibly with additional coloration due to the design of hi-fi loudpseakers.  I probably do prefer pinpoint sources over those artificially smeared to add "space". Some may have other preferences, up to the point of Bose.

These are conclusions made from the most reputable scientists in the field such as Dr. Floyd Toole and Sean Olive, just so you know.