Amping Up

For Those Whose Sound Desires are Bigger Than Their Wallets

Let’s start with the computer. A laptop is portable, stable and way cooler than a desktop. My favourite budget laptop
is the MacBook from Apple, as it comes with a pile of great audio gear installed, like iTunes, GarageBand, iDVD, and it has a decent sound-card. Priced at $1300.00 for the midline model it’s a great starting platform and anything you plug into it just works - there’s no configuring or
drivers to install.  

If you must have a PC then stick with reputable products, like Dell’s XPS M1330 for $999 or Toshiba’s Satellite M300, priced at $949 bucks.

To get tunes into your new toy you’ll need some kind of digital interface that you plug your turntable, CD player or retro eight-track into. PreSonus makes the Inspire 1394, which has a FireWire connection (faster downloads) and a 24-bit/96K analogue to digital converter. It will convert any signal to digital and get it into your computer.

DI boxes are also great if you are a musician, as you can directly plug a guitar, bass, microphone or keyboard into it and record your compositions.

You then need to download a recording program that will record the input. These are available from Audacity, Ableton, and others. Some are available free and some will come with your digital interface.

Once you have the songs into your computer, you’ll need a quality set of speakers to play them back through. I like studio monitors like professional audio engineers use and my favourite place to find them is Long & McQuade. They have a great selection that are all hooked-up and ready for you to audition. My current faves are the KRK RP5G2 Rokits. They sound great and will set you back about
$150 each.

Getting Serious

Moving on up I’d go for a 15-inch MacBook Pro laptop ($2099) or Dell’s XPS M2010 ($2449). I’d add a 30” monitor, a Griffin Elevator laptop stand  ($49), a keyboard and mouse. Now you can open iTunes until it fills the screen with album jackets that can be flipped through like you would at the record store. You remember record stores don’t you?

I’d keep the audio interface and spend my larger budget on bigger speakers and a subwoofer. The whole idea is to get more air moving, so I’d look at a set of Mackie 824s and add a Mackie HRS120 subwoofer. With 400 watts coming from this monster sub you will definitely get evicted from
your condo.

The Dream

First you want
an Apple 17-inch  loaded Macbook Pro ($3,543) or an Alienware Area-51 m17x ($5,794) laptop. You’ll need to add a 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Display ($2,099), Griffin’s Elevator laptop stand, a wireless keyboard and mouse ($150).

Now I’ll grab an audio interface from M-Audio or ART, or the PreSonus FireWire Tube with an analogue tube to warm up those cold digital sounds ($900).

For speakers, Tannoy Precision 8s with a Ts212 sub would have me drooling. With a price tag over $4000 the sound stage is truly impressive, revealing every musical detail.

Finally, when recording music digitally you will want to increase the sampling rate from a standard 128 kbps to 256 or more. This will give you the added detail and let your new hardware shine. Your files will double in size so you will need to ensure you have a large hard drive or better yet a
dedicated external hard drive.