What's the best way to hook up floorstanding speakers to iMac?

[hojoon0724]

This came out of nowhere.
My friend gave me his floorstanding speakers (Klipsch RF-3 II) and I'm not an audiophile and don't even own a receiver.

Of course, I think it needs an amplifier or receiver or that sort of audio equipment. The problem is that I'm on a very tight budget.

Can someone familiar with old school audio equipment help me out with this?

I think these are pretty good and I'd hate to not be able to use it.
I'm connecting it to my iMac as external speakers so I won't need gazillion inputs. Just something that can play the sounds of my iMac.

 

[SmilesLots]

Yes you do need an amplifier of some kind. On a small budget do not expect quality. Here is a fairly good quality and inexpensive amp that should do the trick:

http://www.amazon.com/Pyle-PCA2-40-...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1279717625&sr=8-1

You may need a mini-din adapter to RCA phono and then some speaker wire, like #16 or #14 lamp cord from Lowes or Home Depot. Connect the audio output from the iMac through the adapter and a stereo cable to the Pyle input. Radio Shack even has cables with the correct plug for the iMac on one end, and stereo phono on the other end. You may need a pair of couplers. Then connect the speakers to the Pyle with te lamp cord. For best results pay attention to polarity - it can affect bass response and phase depending on speaker placement.

 

[Eduardo1971]

Agree with the above poster.

By the way these are not 'old school audio equipment'.

 

[jrko]

Good News!

The good news is that the Klipsch RF-3 II are pretty sensitive at a quoted 98db/w/m meaning they need less power to go to reasonably loud than an insensitive pair of speakers.

Whats your budget? I'll work a system out for you if you want?

 

[hojoon0724]

The good news is that the Klipsch RF-3 II are pretty sensitive at a quoted 98db/w/m meaning they need less power to go to reasonably loud than an insensitive pair of speakers.

Whats your budget? I'll work a system out for you if you want?

Not much. If I were to spend a lot on this setup I'd rather sell them and buy a B&W MM-1. My room is a bit small for these speakers anyways.

Less than $100 would be ideal but if it has potential to become a keeper for a long time I'd spend around $200 max for now.

Just to give you an idea of the sound preference, I had the B&W Zeppelin (the original big one) and I loved it. I had to sell it when I moved to the West this summer. Before that, I had the Bose Wave and I loved it for a while then found out they were craptastically awful. I also have B&W's P5 headphones.

 

[jrko]

Two options then

For $100 search ebay and bag yourself a small power amp (no volume control and one set of inputs) and run it straight from your headphone output with a 3.5mm to RCA lead - This will be ok but not great

Alternatively try and find something secondhand like the Trends audio t amp (digital amp) its only 10-15w but will be able top produce very loud peaks (100db is the same as a jet taking off 500m away and your speakers can generate 98db at 1m with only 1w of power) This amp has a volume control so you can just set itunes to max volume (i think itunes is a proportional volume control letting more of the signal through as you up the volume)

Personally I would spend the $200 and get a DAC that accepts a usb input. Then pass this onto an amp (the Trends audio would still be ok) The Dac will clean up the sound no end and takes the conversion of the music (from 10001110101110 binary to analogue for an amp) away from the imac and will re-clock the signal as well. Basically this means you get a better sound & timing.

Hope that all makes sense?