[saydas]

Hi,

I'm new to the forum so sorry if these questions have already been answered. I've recently been introduced into the hi-fi world after my ancient sony all-in-one got stolen. Since then I have purchased a pair of second hand Mission 733 floorstanders.

1. Could anyone recommend a decent 2nd hand amp to pair these with bearing in mind I listen to nearly everything, quite loudly and my budget only extends to around £60.

2. Secondly the majority of my music is on my laptop and so what would be the best way to link to the amp considering the laptop has no optical/coaxial out. I have been advised to purchase the DAC magic by cambridge however cannot afford this. Would this Beresford model do the same job or is there a budget alternative considering I am a student?

Home HI-FI

Cheers for any help!

[mrbenn]

this external sound card will get the sound out of your laptop (phono, headphone and optical out - usb in) - check the reviews online £25

BEHRINGER: UCA202


otherwise i would look into the musical fidelity dac - £130ish
or other external soundcards

[saydas]

Cheers for the quick reply and suggestion. Why is there such a huge difference in price between an external soundcard and a DAC?Surely the soundcard uses a DAC as well?

Also could anyone offer advice on the amp?Thank again

[simenfiber]

I sure you can find an integrated amp in the classifieds on this or other forums. If you just want something that can play loud just buy what ever suits your wallet.

[Euphonious]

Yep - any soundcard will use a DAC. The difference between a soundcard DAC and an external DAC is that the external DAC will use higher-quality components and independent power circuitry, and thus produce (in theory) a higher-quality sound. In practice, you might not be able to notice much difference - that Behringer USB thing is a handy bit of kit.

As for the amp, the Cambridge Audio A1 is the classic budget amp, but it's only 25 watts per channel so it might struggle at higher volumes. If you don't mind buying used, you could get a second-hand Cambridge Audio A5 for that money - it outputs 60wpc, so it should be significantly punchier.

[saydas]

Cheers for all the help, think I'll take your advice and go for Cambridge A5, heard good things about it for the price. Also I'll look into the Behringer as I cannot resist the cheap price.