Connect active studio monitors to my laptop

[visakharun]

How do you connect active studio monitors to my laptop? I think you need something like a audio interface...whats the cheapest option for it...i just want to connect 2 studio monitors(yamaha hs8) to my laptop but all the interfaces online are all very expensive ones with lot of options for connecting various things...:sad: please help...

 

[Santy]

This should work

Amazon.com: Hosa Stereo 3.5mm Male - Two XLR Male - 3m 9.9 feet: Electronics
10 ft Foot 3 5mm Stereo 1 8 Plug to 2 XLR 3pin Male Y Patch Splitter Cable Cord | eBay

 

[cyber_cat]

How do you connect active studio monitors to my laptop? I think you need something like a audio interface...whats the cheapest option for it...i just want to connect 2 studio monitors(yamaha hs8) to my laptop but all the interfaces online are all very expensive ones with lot of options for connecting various things...:sad: please help...

Hi, which laptop do you have ?

WHAT is your BUDGET for audio interface ?

Where are you put up ?

Santy has already suggested some options you can explore those.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

How do you connect active studio monitors to my laptop? I think you need something like a audio interface...

An audio interface is what is also called a sound card. It can be called that even if it is not internal as in a PC slot --- but audio interface is a better name for it. An audio interface gives you input as well as output, so it can be used for recording as well as playback.

I sympathise with your discovery that it is hard to find a good one that just does simple stereo i/o! This, I think, is because the makers are concentrating entirely on the home/semi-pro studio market, and have left the home-music-listening market to DACs. There are a few available, here's one company to look at: ESI, there are others.

Which brings us to DACs.

A DAC gives you just the playback functionality (Digital --> Analogue Converter).

DACs are available at a huge range of sizes and prices, from under US$100 to tens of thousands. There are also different interfaces, but, for dedicated use with a laptop, all you need is USB.

In fact, the HiFime Sabre USB DAC is under fifty USD! I have heard a modded one sounding incredible for the price.

Even without the mod, it could be a very good starting point to get sound to your active speakers. If you ever want to know about the mod, then you need HFV member Linuxguru.

At the next price point comes stuff like the ODAC, a legendary non-commercial design which its designer aimed at equalling devices ten times the price, and "thumb-drive" format units like the Dragonfly and M2Tech.

DACs are very widely discussed on HFV.

 

[visakharun]

HI guys,

First of all thank you for all your replies..maybe i shouldve been more detailed and truthful regarding my dilemmas...hyeah:...I am from tvm,kerala....i have a budget of around 50k for a decent audio setup for my room which is of large size.... my source is a sony vaio s series laptop with all my music collection in mp3(mostly 320kbps) and flac files.....currently i have a sony SA D10 4.1 which are good for movies but sucks at music...based on my extensive research on the internet i have come to 3 conclusions which will suit my budget.....( i ruled out the separates route cuz its never going to suit my budget and maybe i am not such an audiophile)

A usb dac- fiio e7k (6.5k from amazon.in)

1. Audio engine a5+(28.5k), yamaha sw030 sub(10k)
2. Aktimate mini+ (52k from reference point which they will ship)(sub if and when needed according to availability of funds)
3. Yamaha HS8 studio monitors( 47k available in cochin) which i have no idea how to connnect to my laptop, the reason for this post(sub same as above)

I dont think i can audition any of them but i am sure i will like all of them cuz the only things i have ever heard is the sonys :yahoo:...i listen to almost all genres of music...mainly pop,rock,dubstep,electronic,dance music...but sometimes bollywood,tamil and malyalam music also....music:movies will be 70:30...

ok so there you have it.....any other suggestions are also welcome for this budget....if any of you have the above setups please share your experiences also...

 

[theironhorse]

add SWAN as well to your list and get a ODac or audioquest dragonfly or even hifimedia sabre DAC..

 

[asliarun]

I like the way you are thinking about this. Do note that the models you have listed are not at pat with studio monitors - they are not active, merely powered, and also don't have dedicated amps for each driver.

You might be better off with entry level studio monitors like behringer truths or krk rokit. And you need speakers that can fill your room, which means either large size or strong amps, inbuilt or discrete. For your music taste, you need some volume and good control. Like you rightly said, you might even need a good sub later on.

And stands!

 

[cyber_cat]

Hi,

Possible listen to all of them, especially the HS8, then decide.

Studio monitors need certain criteria, good placement/room treatment, coupling isolation/stands, near/far field listening, etc. to be known to sound their best which is going to increase your budget.

A good audio interface is necessary for studio monitors.

You can use what Santy has suggested to connect your monitors, otherwise.

Check out what all you can audition beforehand.

 

[visakharun]

Understood the ways to connect the studio monitors to my laptop...also how do you connect a subwoofer to the studio monitors???

the difference in studio monitor speakers is that each of them is individually powered so i think thats better, a whole lot of more power ....but the fundamental question arises....are studio monitors good for listening to music????

Any of you in this forum uses studio monitors just for listening to music other than production related work?? also worried about stands, placement, room acoustics etc like cyber cat mentioned.......

A5+ and minis are just like plug and play...also i can place them on my desk and connect a sub if needed....

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

are studio monitors good for listening to music????

That depends how much colour you want in your music. Studio monitors are meant to tell it how it is, rather than how some people might want to hear it.

So, if you like transparency, I guess you should like them. They should be very good for listening to music!

No, I have not yet had the opportunity to live with them, but whenever I have heard them I have very much enjoyed the clean sound.

I don't think that they need any more room conditioning, etc, than any other speaker. nearfield listening might need less, because you are too close to the speakers to be affected by some of the reflections inherent in larger-room listening. But I am not at all expert in this. A good audio interface is going to be necessary for any speaker (GIGO!) but, within reasonable price ranges, I suspect that the differences are only subtle.

By the way, my PC speakers are powered, not active, lower-budget, M-Audio AV-40. Yes, I have the upgrade desire for real active monitors, but, for the money I was able to spend at the time, they were great value, and they perform well in a difficult room space.

I should love to have something like Genelec or Adam, but, at lower budget levels, I have enjoyed the sound of KRK.

 

[techboy]

From your list nothing comes close to aktimate mini+. Not even the yamaha studio monitors which are about equal perhaps but certainly not in the same league for enjoyment as a home speaker. The Aktimates come with a built in dac. Buy eyes closed.

No speaker from swan is in the same league as Aktimates. Aktimates compete with far more expensive speakers, there is nothing available in India under 60k, passive or active which can match it. The only speakers which beat it are adam audio but they might be too harsh for home use, especially without a good standalone dac (minimum cost 30k) and unless you only use flac and wav files. Aktimates will do nicely all mp3 formats as well and don't require an expensive dac to perform nicely.

Again, studio monitors like krk, yamaha, m audio are a step up from audioengine and perhaps even compete/beat swan speakers, but at a given price point, they can't compete with Aktimates.

I don't get any money to write positively about Aktimates. But I have owned lots of speakers and read extensively about everything in this budget and Aktimates are the end game setup for this budget.

 

[cyber_cat]

Understood the ways to connect the studio monitors to my laptop...also how do you connect a subwoofer to the studio monitors???

You connect your PC to sub and then connect the monitors to sub outputs. I am talking about the Yamaha's here.

the difference in studio monitor speakers is that each of them is individually powered so i think thats better, a whole lot of more power ....but the fundamental question arises....are studio monitors good for listening to music????

Any of you in this forum uses studio monitors just for listening to music other than production related work?? also worried about stands, placement, room acoustics etc like cyber cat mentioned.......

I personally use HS80m with Avid C400 to listen to music, movies, games through PC and simply love them.

Listening through studio monitors is not everybody's cup of tea.

Also since you are not going to use it in a professional setup skipping the room treatment is okay but at least try it with stands.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

... especially without a good standalone dac (minimum cost 30k)

Good standalone DAC, minimum cost 10K

I make no comment about very good, extremely good, or top-whack --- as there is no upper limit hyeah:

 

[techboy]

Odac is not what I consider a very good dac. Just because its designer claims so means nothing. Odac is an entry level dac, period.

30k means a mid fi level dac like those from asus essence one or arcam or musical fidelity m1dac. These are way beyond what Odac can even dream of being regardless of what people think or believe.

AVI owner says his speakers are the best in the world bar none. Do people really believe that his 1250 pounds speakers beat those that cost over 100k pounds as he claims them to be? Of course they aren't. Same goes with Odac. It is a good buy at $150 but that is it. If you can spend $400+ then there are options which shred it to pieces.

The reason you find Odac good is because you don't have revealing gear. With studio monitors or high end headphones, Odac is a baby at best. There may not be anything better for $150. But to genuinely buy a good enough dac you need to spend a lot more. With adam audio you will be able to appreciate the difference and thus buying a decent dac worth 25-30k is the minimum I would recommend should you want to go down that route.

With Aktimates you don't need an external dac though one will make a lot of difference as well.

I am not saying Odac is bad, but if you plan to buy revealing gear, then it is better to budget for better stuff which can match your stuff, rather than to merely get the job done in the cheapest possible manner.

It really depends on what you are used to.

If all you have heard is an iPod then it sounds fantastic. If you get used to an Odac it will sound the best you have heard. But if you get used to an expensive dac then you won't be able to manage with just an Odac.

So should we say the iPod dac is good while the Odac dac is very good? No. It depends on the point of reference. IMO $500-1000 DACs which are huge killers at their price points just like the Odac is at $150, though are good in my opinion.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Leave the ODAC out of it... I have had good DACs in sound cards and audio interfaces for the last decade, long before the hifi merchants decide to separate them out and turn them into another price-race, cost-snob product.

The ODAC is, anyway, now just one of a bunch of DACs in that price range, and some say that it has been left behind by better units at the same price.

You can say "If you can spend...." for ever. Sure, of course there is always, "If you can spend," If you can spend. And it becomes relevant When you can spend.

Until that day, we all have our budgets, and most of our budgets can buy good stuff. Hifi should be a bottom-up, not a top-down, pursuit.

Otherwise, it becomes,

"I want to listen to some decent music."

Sure, you'll have to spend a lakh. or ten.​

1. Let's start where we are.

2. Let's not fall for the idea that good stuff has to have multiple zeros on the price.

3. Let's define good as something that one listen to with little but pleasure, even though one knows that better exists and is possible, if not affordable.

And, actually, I wasn't thinking so much of the ODAC, as the absurdly cheap HiFiMeDIY, as modded by a forum member, that cost less than Rs4,000. Did it qualify as "good?" It stood up to stuff at six times its price amazingly well.

We are in a thread where a guy has Rs50,000 to spend. Your way might be different (and equally valid) but what I'd do is to spend nearly all of that on active speakers, and the rest on a decent DAC, of any one of several names that have been mentioned. Of course, I'd try and up the budget, if I could, but I'd prioritise the speakers, and hope that, whatever else I upgraded, they would last for several iterations of source, etc.

Is garbage-in-garbage-out an ultimate truth? Is the source really all important? I struggle with this one. Yes, of course, if one is talking real garbage, not only can it not be improved, it will get worse as the system gets better. But we are not talking real garbage, we are talking at least bottom-line good.

A brief tale. Back in 1980-something, listening to my cheap clock radio (it sounded awful, especially for music. I guess the speaker was about an inch in diameter) I had the crazy idea to connect the headphone out to my amplifier! Wow! guess what decent amplification and speakers did for my clock radio!

With studio monitors or high end headphones...

Give me a year or three. The plan is there, it just needs cash


~

 

[sachu21]

If your sony vaio sound card is not 5.1 output, then what's the use

 

[shibashis]

Leave the ODAC out of it... I have had good DACs in sound cards and audio interfaces for the last decade, long before the hifi merchants decide to separate them out and turn them into another price-race, cost-snob product.

The ODAC is, anyway, now just one of a bunch of DACs in that price range, and some say that it has been left behind by better units at the same price.

You can say "If you can spend...." for ever. Sure, of course there is always, "If you can spend," If you can spend. And it becomes relevant When you can spend.

Until that day, we all have our budgets, and most of our budgets can buy good stuff. Hifi should be a bottom-up, not a top-down, pursuit.

Otherwise, it becomes,

"I want to listen to some decent music."

Sure, you'll have to spend a lakh. or ten.​

1. Let's start where we are.

2. Let's not fall for the idea that good stuff has to have multiple zeros on the price.

3. Let's define good as something that one listen to with little but pleasure, even though one knows that better exists and is possible, if not affordable.

And, actually, I wasn't thinking so much of the ODAC, as the absurdly cheap HiFiMeDIY, as modded by a forum member, that cost less than Rs4,000. Did it qualify as "good?" It stood up to stuff at six times its price amazingly well.

We are in a thread where a guy has Rs50,000 to spend. Your way might be different (and equally valid) but what I'd do is to spend nearly all of that on active speakers, and the rest on a decent DAC, of any one of several names that have been mentioned. Of course, I'd try and up the budget, if I could, but I'd prioritise the speakers, and hope that, whatever else I upgraded, they would last for several iterations of source, etc.

Is garbage-in-garbage-out an ultimate truth? Is the source really all important? I struggle with this one. Yes, of course, if one is talking real garbage, not only can it not be improved, it will get worse as the system gets better. But we are not talking real garbage, we are talking at least bottom-line good.

A brief tale. Back in 1980-something, listening to my cheap clock radio (it sounded awful, especially for music. I guess the speaker was about an inch in diameter) I had the crazy idea to connect the headphone out to my amplifier! Wow! guess what decent amplification and speakers did for my clock radio!



Give me a year or three. The plan is there, it just needs cash


~

Enlightening to read your post. Thanks for an educative, unbiased and grounded reply. I say 'grounded' because you encourage the idea that listening to music should be a pleasurable experience, not a constant itch of persistent dissatisfaction with one's gear purely because seemingly "better and costlier" options exist out there.
Yeah...they always will have better things....but then I perhaps enjoyed playing Super Mario and Road Fighter much much more than today's ultra high-def and realist games. Sorry for the irrelevant rant on this thread, but hey people should enjoy their music!

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Sadly, though, I'm not immune to the itch! :lol:. In my fantasy, there is a multi-lakh pc/headphone system --- and there is nothing wrong with that! Without it, I probably wouldn't hang around a forum like this.

Actually, also back in 1980-something, after trying for sometime to get to grip with reviews, specifications and measurements, and getting little other than a headache, I went into a hifi shop, and said, "Can I get a good system for 400?" The guy said, "I can give you a superb system for 400." He did not say, "Nope. You need 4,000." And, of course, I did not go home with stuff like Quad electronics, electrostatic speakers, or even Tannoy --- but I got to listen to good music for the next few years.


~

 

[shibashis]

He he....no one is really immune to the itch, if I was I would be a saint. I too dream of a system of many lakhs and what not. However as you point out true music listening experience does not have to mean you go beyond logic and reasoning. Build slow, with patience and according to your ability. Your financial constraints (or for lucky few the lack of it) should not be absolute detrimental to your passion for quality music listening experience.

"...nothing wrong with that." indeed.