Music on a computer

[sancho26]

Hello everyone I have a bit of a problem, I'm going to have a party for my daughter's birthday this weekend and I have two pretty good $1,400 speakers I'm connecting to play my itunes music. I'm not very knowledgeable in computers and I wanted to know if the computer has anything to do with how good the sound is or is it more of a speakers thing? I have a desktop and a laptop and I'm not sure which one to use for the party I'd rather use the laptop mostly cause it's more convenient but if the sound wont be as good I'd rather use the desktop. in the components section my desktop says it has a AMD High Definition Audio Device and Via High Definition Audio. My laptop says Intel Display Auido with IDT High Definition Audio Codec. I'm not sure if that's enough info to receive your help but my question is will my desktop sound better or is what really matters the speakers?

 

[mcnumpty23]

never tried but would imagine what is going to matter most would be an amplifier

neither desktop or laptop is likely to provide enough volume for a decent set of speakers

 

[crisan_tiberiu]

Either way you are fine. Make sure you have an amplifier for those speakers... It doesnt mather if you have 3000$ speaker or 300$ speakers for a party if you suply them with 128kbps mp3s

 

[sancho26]

they have amps built in them apparently. I have a powered mixer and the guy at the store told me that it wouldn't be wise to hook up powered speakers to a powered mixer. Thanks for your help I'm hoping they sound good I don't have the laptop with me to try them out so I'm probably going to end up taking my desktop if I can't figure what's better

 

[mcnumpty23]

pretty sure some djs nowadays use laptops so must be ok

 

[sancho26]

Ya I see they use laptops but I don't know if they sound good because of a good sound card or they have some software installed. I don't have any of that I'm just playing straight from itunes with the stock hardware

 

[smorizio]

ask if a friend or a local computer store has a creative labs sound card or a asus sound card. the older pci ones still work fine in windows 7. if you can find the xi or newer asus it be just plug it in and install the drivers..and turn off on board sound chipset. if the old pc gets to be replaced you can move the sound card to the new pc.

 

[mcnumpty23]

i assume your speakers are for a hi-fi or similar

will you actually have the physical connectors to connect to pc or laptop?

 

[MagicPants]

If you want effective help, you ought to include the make/model of the speakers and the laptop.

 

[Idonno]

If your PC has a digital audio output, your just using 2 speakers (stereo) and your receiver has the corresponding digital audio input. The PC's onboard sound or sound card will just be bypassed and the receiver will do all the work so the PC's or laptops sound devise quality won't make any difference.

If your connecting via analog, the PC's or laptops onboard sound or sound card will be tasked with the digital decoding and the resulting quality will be highly dependent on those components. So yes, in that scenario it can make a big difference (good or bad) depending on the quality of the PC's or laptop's sound device.

The AMD High Definition Audio Device is your video cards Audio Device and only works in conjunction with some type of video for playing the video's sound only. This will not work for MP3's or any audio that isn't directly related to the Video you are watching. Sounds stupid I know but that is the way it is.

The Intel Display Audio is most likely the same since it is "Display Audio" AKA video audio and most likely works only through an HDMI connection like AMD's High Definition Audio Device when in the presence of accompanying video.
Again sounds stupid but, this all has to do with (HDCP) High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection. So unless your laptop has another form of audio out (short of buying an external USB sound card) you will probably have to connect through the 3.5 mm headphone jack