tls@rek.tjls.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) writes:
> On Thu, May 24, 2001 at 11:34:11AM -0400, Brian Hechinger wrote:
> > 
> > i think the lesson here is leave the wankerware USB /SPEAKERS/ for the wanker
> > winders users.  honestly, what feature did these things have that a normal set
> > of speakers with a standard lo-gain input and a set of knobs does have?
> 
> A DAC that's not inside the fantastically noisy environment of your PC, of
> course.
>
> Some of the USB speakers, even the ones with really cheap, crappy analog
> sides (e.g. the LabTec ones) have very, very good DACs.  You can unhook the
> wire that runs to the amp and plug them into a decent power amp and speakers
> and get much better output quality than just about any other sub-$1000
> solution for your PC.

Hm? I thought that S/PDIF output was digital and thus not subject to noisy
DAC, and my S/PDIF-enabled ES1373 based soundcard (I think it's SB64 or
something) cost almost 25$ two (or is it three?) years ago.

Okay, my Dolby Digital amp cost maybe $400, but I'm still way below
$1000. (cheapest amps w/ S/PDIF in are probably around $150 price range)

With the speakers, I'm way above $1000 of course, but I _could_ be way
below, too.. ;-) 

> There's an Altec-Lansing model that has a good DAC and decent small amp and
> speakers built into it; I know a few NetBSD developers use them.  If you want
> a set of "multimedia speakers" for your machine, this is a nice way to go;
> much better than separate sound card and decicated amplified speaker set.
> 
> -- 
> Thor Lancelot Simon	                                      tls@rek.tjls.com
>     And now he couldn't remember when this passion had flown, leaving him so
>   foolish and bewildered and astray: can any man?
> 						   William Styron

-Markus

-- 
"Every program has (at least) two purposes: the one for which it was
written, and another for which it wasn't. "

From ACM's SIGPLAN publication, (September, 1982), Article "Epigrams
in Programming", by Alan J. Perlis of Yale University.