Near-Field Monitor Recommendations: Desktop 2.0 /2.1 for PC - Page 2

PSB Image B4 is currently very high on my list. Very small but still a true bookshelf. But how bout these for planars? http://www.eminent-tech.com/lft11prod.html

Had Monsoons desktops. Even brought 2 sets when I moved overseas. They were great until the company's gone. Yes I'm a planar + ribbon nut

Of course. Any digital out would preserve the signal as much as possible despite the continuous belief by audiophiles to run analog rca out from the sources.

If you have a quality sound card installed, using USB speakers would be a waste. Stick with analog connections.

I was referring to the output of the sound card via analog. Alot of people use toslink as well, neither sounds better than the other in my own testing.

USB speakers are terrible and become a USB sound card. Realtek chipsets arent bad, they just arent audiophile chips. You could use an external dac via USB if you want no processing by your sound card. Otherwise your laptop sound card will sound fine as analog out.

I have my older swan m10s hooked up to the dell laptop and play flac encoded music and ite sounds nice. Now here's the kicker for me...

My laptop is a dell vostro 3700 with a IDT sound chipset. I have a realtek setup in my other laptop which is a HP. IDTs aren't as punchier as realtek's sound. I also noticed using an unbalanced cable on the dell to my mixer, I pick up a lot of noise for a 3 foot cable. Updating the driver helped,but ultimately I had to go from a 3.5mm to xlr cable to kill the noise I was getting. I can use a 6 foot analog cable which is 3.5mm to dual rca's with no issues on the laptop with the realtek.

These are not powered, but reviews have been good

http://rslspeakers.com/RSL_Studio_Monitor_System.html

The better output cable is digital be it USB or toslink or coax. Then after the signal is sent to the DAC, it's the quality of the DAC. After the DAC it's the receiver or the powered speaker's quality. Which one are you referring to?

And what DAC would be in the powered speaker that's using the USB connection from the PC? I think you're comparing DACs instead of the connection type (analog vs digital)

Well hang on a second. If you connect your computer to the dac via USB, you can run into interference issues and latency. The best practice is shooting out the sound to the dac either by coax or toslink. Most Onboard sound nowadays can at least provide one of connections, if not both. In most cases you will need an $8 adapter to do it on a laptop.

USB speakers are actually sound cards. They sound decent for getting sound out but that's about it.

If I'm in the OP's position I'd get USB out only if my integrated amp accepts usb only and not toslink. Amps like Pioneers I think only accept USB input.

Anyone hear the new Paradigm powered speaker?
Where does it fit in among those listed above?

Dude it's digital. If the error, if they exist, is so great you'd be getting data errors on your USB flash stick or HD.