Finally got my laptop (and working on selling the desktop…). I am soon going to be in the market for some very small but decent speakers to go along with the external Creative Soundcard I got. Must be small and light, good sound quality (I’m not super-huge into perfect sound quality but I do enjoy good bass support and such), and either good battery life or a power source that can take the UK power grid. Should be able to be put on a desk or in a backpack.
Must NOT be USB, as they would be plugged directly into the Sound card and not into the laptop. I’d use them with my minidisc player too. here’s the card I got:
I wanted the model down from this actually, but it wasn’t working with my system…
So - speaker suggestions? I saw a couple on Minidisco.com and planetminidisc.com in the $30-$70 range, obviously I’d prefer lower price, but I know nothing about the quality of any of the models out there. Quality, size, price, and weight are all issues - probably in that order, too.
I’d wait till I was in the UK to get them but then they would be double the price…
I tried to buy one. I thought it’d be cool to play minidisks in the car using one of the windows as speaker… but the guys at thinkgeek.com said they couldn’t confirm my billing address (a normal address, and i buy stuff online all the time never had this problem). They wanted me to fax a copy of my credit card as confirmation, and i said “no thanks!”.
The speaker i do have, BTW, is an old Sony with one bass speaker and 2 tweaters that look like Mickey Mouse’s ears. It works fine. When i bought it, i checked the price of a new Sony speaker in minidisco.com and looked in eBay for something cheaper than that. I got it for $15, but it took 2 weeks and a series of complaints to eBay and PayPal for the seller to ship it to me.
No, i think it’s the old version of that. It’s the same general idea, but the 3 speakers are round instead of squre. Similar specs (4W, 4 AA batteries). Mine sounds fine, but doen’t have a whole lot of stereo separation, unless you’re close to it.
I keep seeing ‘stereo seperation’ mentioned as a factor in speaker conversations. I understand the basics of this - the distance between the two speakers and the seperation of their soundwaves - but why is it important and is it really that noticeable to the average user?
When you have the correct amount of distance between the speakers relative to the listener’s position (which i forget now how you figure out), the sound will be more realistic, more similar to what was recorded. Headphones give you the best separation. Some people really care for it (e.g.: being able to visualize “where” the violins are), others don’t care much.
