by Rebecca Day
If you value the tunes you store on your PC (or Mac, of course), you should also value the speakers for your computer sound system. Like the throwaway earbuds that come with a smartphone, most speakers that come with laptop or desktop PCs are serviceable at best. But with hard disk space no longer a limit to music file size, and with high-res streaming services (such as Tidal and Deezer) coming on line, there’s no reason to skimp on PC active speakers. To get the most out of your tracks, make sure the last stop in the audio path respects your music.
What’s the difference between active and passive speakers? Read this.
Upscale speaker companies followed the move from CD to digital, and many of the same respected names that deliver high-fidelity music to tower speakers sell compact active speakers or computer for the desktop. Brands including B&W, Bose, JBL, KEF, Klipsch, Paradigm and Polk Audio offer downsized models that can do justice to the music coming from a PC – whether it’s a 2-in-1 or an all-in-one.
You don’t know how a speaker will sound until you hear it in your own space. A few online retailers – Cambridge SoundWorks and Crutchfield are two – allow you to audition speakers, and you can return them within a certain period of time if they don’t fit the bill. Features to consider when buying PC speakers: a headphone jack for private listening; an aux jack if you want to plug in that precious iPod; a mute to silence the music quickly when necessary; a USB connector if you have the extra ports and volume controls and Bluetooth if you want to stream from your phone. Generally, more wattage translates to more power. Some lower end models get power from a PC via laptop, but higher quality, higher power active speakers need AC power. Some come with a subwoofer for more bass; some come with LED lights that pulse to the music.
PC speakers start in price at ten bucks a pair, and you can go up to a grand. Here are a few affordable choices for discerning music lovers.
Harman Kardon SoundSticks Wireless
SoundSticks are the complete package – great sounding and cool-looking, too. So cool, in fact, that the polycarbonate-encased speaker system is part of the permanent collection at the Modern Museum of Art in New York. The 2.1 system, sporting left and right satellite sticks and a separate subwoofer, uses Harman’s TrueStream, designed to optimize for the compression used when streaming music via Bluetooth from your phone. There’s a 3.5mm stereo line-in jack for a direct connection to an audio source. The sub gets half of the 40-watt power allotment, and the sticks, which are adjustable to angle the sound, get 10 watts each. $199 (Available on Amazon)
Definitive Technology’s Incline active speakers are tall at 11.3 inches but the 4.4- inch depth minimizes the perceived airspace of the powerful 80-watt system. The speakers are angled 9.5 degrees to direct the music to your ears. The Inclines pack a USB digital-to-analog converter (DAC) that’s designed to bypass the computer’s gain stages and volume controls to provide a more pure signal path for better sound quality. Inputs include optical, USB and 3.5mm stereo analog. The bipolar design positions drivers on the front and back of the speakers to radiate sound in an omnidirectional pattern. $249 (Available on Amazon)
B&W engineers wanted to create the kind of room-filling sound delivered from their home audio speakers in a compact model for a desktop. They did it in the Bowers and Wilkins MM-1 active speakers using digital signal processing that constantly adjusts sound balance to keep bass powerful and mid- and high frequencies rich and detailed — at all volume levels. The MM-1s come with their own DAC to produce optimum sound independent of the sound card in the PC. The 7-inch-tall speakers were designed to tailor sound to a sweet spot that’s front and center, a few feet from the computer screen. Inputs include 3.5mm analog and USB. Four 18 watt amplifiers power the MM-1s. $499 (Available on Amazon)
You know when you haul these 16.5-pound powerhouses out of the box that they’re not your average PC speakers. For true audio buffs, the KEF X300As pack a 96kHz/24-bit USB input to bring out all the range and detail in your high-res files and streams, while ensuring nothing is lost from the original music source. The speakers each have two class AB amplifiers – 70 watts of power total – with one dedicated to low-and midrange signals and the other to high frequencies. A high-performance DAC in each speaker eliminates interference by separating decoding from playback. The 11-inch-tall speakers boast the Uni-Q point source driver array used in KEF’s flagship tower speakers. The X300As have 3.5mm analog and USB inputs. $799 (Available on Amazon)
Even with high-quality computer speakers, you still need a high-quality DAC to make your computer sound systems sound its best. Read about DACs here.
Read more about active vs passive speakers here.
Paul Binder says
The KEF’s are great sounding speakers. Should be connected to PC/Mac via USB cable to the “Master” (usually left channel) unit. Master and “Slave” (usually right channel) are linked via a second USB cable. On a Mac, just set the audio output to the appropriate USB port.