Modest Midwest Audiophile

  Keep it Short           In electronics it’s usually best to keep connections short when possible and audio is no exception. Long lengths of cable can pick up EMI (Electro-magnetic interference) from any number of things, from your router, poorly insulated power cables and non grounded cable TV splitter boxes. This can add background noise lowering your immersive experience and losing some of your detail from a recording.       Knowing this, I have been facing an issue for a while with my digital source being in a different room than the stereo. That’s over 25ft of cable needed to snake from my computer to my DAC. I found a decent shielded usb cable with a repeater from Monoprice that fit the bill and made it work. It didn’t sound bad, the shielding was decent enough to keep out an impressive amount of interference and I didn’t notice a lack in detail. Over a couple years or so of use the repeater would introduce a random pop into the music signal and I knew it was time for a change,

   So, how to get started finding what you have been missing in your music? You build your first audio system! It is generally referred to as a “system” due to the multiple steps the audio takes from your output to eventually be picked up by your ears. In some context it will be called audio chain as well, more on that later.   It doesn’t have to be expensive or complex, as long as the company that made it cares about how it sounds. You want something that is involving and fun.      Where will you be doing most of your listening, at home or on the go? Do you want the flexibility and low footprint of headphones, or the impactful 3d presence of speakers? Both headphones and speaker set ups have their strengths and weaknesses. Both ends of the spectrum have all in one solutions, but keep in mind as a general rule of thumb that you will tend to get better sound out of separating the audio chain. For example having a standalone DAC or amplifier is usually better than one that is a built in