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Are Laptops Becoming the New Stereos?
Is it time to toss that stereo in favor of your laptop? While "decent sound" is promised by most laptops, you can boost your music sound quality by selecting the "lossless" option when ripping CDs; and splurging on good speakers, amplifiers and subwoofers. A wireless audio transmission setup is also recommended for ease of control.
According to Thomas Rau from German magazine PC Welt, 15 to 17 inch laptops with integrated speakers offer "decent sound" for your average user. "Integrated speakers aren't worth our time," says Peter Knaak from the German consumer testing organization Stiftung Warentest.
The quality of the sound ultimately depends on several factors. The first is how severely the music has been compressed. "If you listen to music in MP3 form, then you don't need a high-quality stereo set," Rau says.
Songs that have been compressed into compact digital files are not going to produce a rich sound no matter how they're played. Knaak sees this differently, though: music digitized into 192 kilobit per second (kbit/s) or 256 kbit/s format is "hardly distinguishable from CD quality" in terms of sound.
Bernhard Rietschel, hardware expert at Audio magazine, recommends clicking on the "lossless" option when ripping CDs. While recording in lossless format requires more storage space for each song, the advantage is that albums can be played back in full CD quality.
In the end, though, speakers are responsible for 90 percent of the sound. Amplifiers are also key components. If you don't have room for a separate amplification unit, then be sure to use active speakers with an integrated amplifier. Speaker size is determined by volume, frequency, and size of the space they need to fill with sound. A 20-square-meter room requires speakers at least 30 centimeters high, for example.
Opinions diverge when it comes to subwoofers as well. They are especially crucial for people who want their bass to rattle the windows. Knaak strongly recommends 2.1 systems with a subwoofer and two satellite speakers each equipped with a tweeter and woofer. The satellites should be at least as large as two milk cartons put together.
Without the subwoofer, there's not enough bass and the sound becomes distorted, Knaak says. That's primarily acceptable for "young people who listen to music on their cell phone anyway," he says. Those who prefer a finer sound can't be stingy. "If it's under 100 dollars, then it's not worth buying," he says.
In general it's possible to plug speakers directly into a laptop's audio outputs. Even so, it must be powerful enough to provide sufficient voltage, Rietschel says. Otherwise it may not be able to work across a long cable, or provide sufficient volume.
Rietschel recommends a wireless audio transmission setup. A transmitter on the laptop sends the music digitally to receivers on the speakers which can then be positioned freely around the apartment. There's also a free app named "Remote" for those who don't want to get off the couch to control their music: it lets their laptop music player be controlled using an iPhone or iPod.
Wireless Business Solution Zee Tawasha