[lug] Speakers

[Nate Duehr]

On Mon, Jul 31, 2000 at 05:29:47PM -0600, Gary Hodges wrote:
> 
> Are low price PC speakers all the same functionality-wise?  I got sound
> going on my Linux PC today, and then went down the hall to grab a set of
> unused Boston Acoustic speakers we got with a recent Gateway PC purchase. 
> The Labtec speakers I have generate an annoying hum.  Well, the Boston's
> don't work, and the Labtec's do.  I verified the Boston's worked on one of
> the Gateway PC's they came with.  I have a SoundBlaster16 card, and the
> manual just says to install speakers. 

Just a little off-topic, but in general you can pick up an old 70's
vintage tuner with aux inputs, a couple of monster old box speakers, and
the appropriate cables to connect them to your PC as cheaply as some of
the special PC speaker stuff, and save a bundle.  

Some silly show on ZDTV reminded me of doing this a couple of years back
on a PC I had, and I can tell ya, it sounds great.  

Can't put the speakers right next to your monitor or anything, but under
the desk with the volume cranked up, they sound wonderful.

(Austin Powers voice..) High-Fi, Baby!  Yeah!

Since that time, I got too geeky and bought real "PC Speakers" and now
that I think about it, the sound quality on most of them really stinks.

I bought a set of made-for-PC Altec Lansings complete with subwoofer and
everything, and I think the old stereo driven system still sounded
better.

Now if you're a hard-core gamer and messing around with the
surround-sound stuff, this probably won't work... but for the average
joe listening to MP3's, it's dandy.  And tuners like this can be picked
up for a song at a garage sale or you may even have a few floating
around the house somewhere if you're really lucky!

My wife experimented with hooking a "boom-box" Sony to her iMac.  That
I would NOT recommend.  Sounded like hell.

(Remember the experiments with Quad-speaker systems in the late 70's
early 80's?  Serious audiophile stuff back then...)

-- 
Nate Duehr <nate at natetech.com>

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