edwardc77

Hi everybody, I’ve been in this forum for a few months now and I’ve been reading about how a lot of people listen to music using their laptop speakers.
From what I also understood some of these folks aren’t too happy about the sound quality of their music, but can’t do much about it, because any alternative would be an expensive investment.
This isn’t strictly true, you can listen to high quality music, or at least music that is of a much higher definition, with an investment of around $100 dollars.
I know this because I’m an electronic engineer and I’ve been working in the audio world for a few years now.
So here is my small guide to help whoever wants to hear music with good sound quality but has a very small budget.

Part 1. The three don’ts

1: Don’t listen/buy/download mp3s.
I won’t get technical on this, but simply put mp3s sound terrible. A lot of you will probably have 128 kbps mp3s on your computer and the quality of those files is miserable. If you can’t hear the difference between Cd quality and mp3s it is probably because you’re using crappy speakers or because you’re listening to music with a cell phone. From now on it is best that you focus on lossless codecs.
Lossless codecs keeps the quality of the music intact.
The most famous lossless codec is called Flac. You can find songs and albums encoded to Flac very easily on the internet.
The only downside is that Flac files are big, but memory is cheap nowadays, so the size shouldn’t concern you.
Sometimes you will also find very big flac files labeled as “24/96” or Flacs from a vinyl source, they are not necessary, a regular cd quality flac file will do.Speaking of cds I also recommend you to rip your cds to flac in case you need portability.

2: Don’t listen/buy /download remastered albums.
Again I won’t get to technical, but suffice to say that most remastered albums are sonically sabotaged to try to make them sound good on crappy equipment like laptops or compact stereos. Everything sounds so loud and sometimes unwanted distortion is present, it’s a disgrace.
There are no dynamics on remastered albums, because without quiet you can’t appreciate loud. As I said, there are some exceptions like for very old records or for jazz and classical music, but when we are dealing with rock/pop/rap and albums recorded in the last 25 years it’s best to get the original editions.

3: Don’t follow the crowd on audio equipment.
Following fashion trends in audio equipment is a terrible, terrible idea, you pay a lot of cash and in return get junk. They might look good, they might be nice to hold in your hand but sound wise these products are essentially a waste of wires and components. Here are some quick examples.
IPods are garbage.
Skullcandy headphones are garbage.
Beats by Dr Dre is garbage.
This is not an opinion, it’s a technical fact.

Part 2
Spending the $100 dollars.
So now that you have your Flacs that you got from unremasterd albums we need some decent equipment. If you keep listening to music on your laptop, even with high quality files you won’t hear much of a difference. With only 100 dollars here’s what you could do.
Memory Card:
$25 dollars are needed for a 32 GB microSD memory card. Flac files are big, therefore you need adequate memory.
Headphones:
$45 dollars are needed to buy The Klipsch S4 headphones.
Now if you ask me if these are the best headphones available, my answer will be: Hell No! Not even close! However for our budget they are great and they are far better than anything from Dr Dre or Skullcandy. Gone is the artificial bass that overwhelms everything like when listening to cheaper headphones. You will hear instead a more realistic reproduction, with highs, mids and bass in a better proportion. This is fundamental for a pleasurable listening experience.
The portable Media player.
You will need $30 dollars to purchase the Sandisk Sansa Clip+.
Without being too technical I must say the sound quality of this small player is exceptional for the price, far better than any product by Apple. Nothing sounds too flat or exaggerated when using this device. I would have a hard time recommending a better portable player for even three times the price of a Sandisk. It also has an expandable memory (for your 32 GB memory card) and most important it can read Flacs which is fundamental.

Part 3: Final Note.
So there you go, listening to lossless audio with the S4s and the Sansa Clip will give you a quality experience far superior to what most people will get by listening to music on their laptop speakers or with their cheap compact stereos.
It’s a far stretch from an audiophile system, but after a couple of weeks of listening to music with your $100 system, switch back for a second and listen to some 128kbps mp3s on your laptop speakers and you will be surprised regarding the difference of quality .

P.S.
I already know that audiophiles will scoff at my advice, but as I previously stated , I wrote this guide mainly for teenagers or people with a very small budget. It would have been ridiculous to recommend McIntosh tube amps or Sonus Faber speakers to my target audience.

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