Cheapest Way to Obtain Youtube/Digital Music Through Hi-Fi

[trufflehunt]

Years ago, 80's, I earned quite well, and had a couple of expensive habits, cars and hi-fi,
whilst feeling that £12 for an MFI self-assembly armchair was a bit over the top.

So, I own an amount of rather expensive British-made kit, that still sounds great,
but is completely detached from the internet.

Now, I earn small amounts.

Could someone tell me the cheapest way for me to access internet music, and play it through my existing system ?

[gumby6371]

Cheapest way I can think of would be connecting the aux-in socket on your amp to the headphone socket on your digital device of choice.
If the aux-in is a 3.5mm jack then should be very easy and cheap as chips as you can pick up 3.5mm jack to 3.5mm jack for pennies. Sound quality on the other hand will very much depend on the bit rate of whatever you're streaming/playing.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/c/cables-and-co ... 5mm-cables

I find Maplins to be a bit pricey but there are a few examples on the link of what's available.

[Welly]

Ahhhh, the days when things were made properly

We use a 3.5mm jack to RCA Phono lead (the Red and White ones) that go from the 'device' to the old inputs on the properly made equipment.

Spend as much as you can afford on the lead for the lowest 'loss' but I guess you know this.

[DaiRees]

We use a 3.5mm jack to RCA Phono lead (the Red and White ones) that go from the 'device' to the old inputs on the properly made equipment.

Yup, same here.

I've been thinking of trying to introduce some kind of permanent media playing device to my home entertainment systems, need to research that really....

[steve_earwig]

Pc earphone jack on the back - 3.5mm jack plug to RCA connector lead into my old Kenwood amp aux sockets. Although sadly I have to wait until the wife is out to use it how I'd like

[DaiRees]

I'm sure this has been on here before but here's my stack of stuff. TV, DVD and Sky are all piped through it too, and there's a dangly 3.5mm jack for plugging in MP3 player, phone, laptop etc. Actually the TV is one of those "smart" ones so any device on the network can play media through the hi-fi via the TV, it's a bit of a faff doing it that way though.

[trufflehunt]

Thanks chaps, much appreciated.

Funny thing, technology. A few years back, my nephew asked my brother..
"Dad, what did people do before CD's ?".

The march of time. Still have all my old vinyls, Country Joe and The Fish, 'Electric Music for the Mind and Body'...,
The Doors, 'Waiting for the Sun'... my first LP from 1970.

Then the rather smaller collection of CD's, now almost redundant as most of my listening is done online.
But through headphones.

When I get that lead connected up, I'll be able to disturb the neighbours again.

[Welly]

As a young lad and in my early days of driving I had, what I thought, was a very decent car stereo set up including a Kenwood head unit connected to a "graphic equaliser" and Alpine speakers all round. I used to purchase many cassette tapes in Album and Single form (the Kenwood would 'find' the gaps between the tracks ) so eventually I ended up with a large box with hundreds of cassettes........all of which I binned in the late 90's when moving house. I often wonder what it's be like to sit one day and listen to some of them again.

[benczuk]

I have upgraded from a dangly 3.5mm cable to one of these: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Wireless-USB- ... 4875bebcec

Works very nicely streaming off my iphone, allowing me to carry it round a *short* distance and control the track without wandering back to the stereo each time.

[Captain Jack]

As a young lad and in my early days of driving I had, what I thought, was a very decent car stereo set up including a Kenwood head unit connected to a "graphic equaliser" and Alpine speakers all round. I used to purchase many cassette tapes in Album and Single form (the Kenwood would 'find' the gaps between the tracks ) so eventually I ended up with a large box with hundreds of cassettes........all of which I binned in the late 90's when moving house. I often wonder what it's be like to sit one day and listen to some of them again.

Cassettes don't do much for me but I do go weak at the knees with "record players". Here's mine:



The Kenwood amp doesn't have a pre-amp in, so I have to use an ancient power amp to do that job.

[KozmoNaut]

Ahhhh, the days when things were made properly

We use a 3.5mm jack to RCA Phono lead (the Red and White ones) that go from the 'device' to the old inputs on the properly made equipment.

Spend as much as you can afford on the lead for the lowest 'loss' but I guess you know this.

That's pure bovine manure.

No one can hear the difference between a £2 El-Cheapo minijack to RCA lead and one that costs £200. Literally no one.

Cables of sufficient current-carrying ability have no audible effect on an audio signal. If they do, they are by definition defective and you should get your money back. And line level signals have very low current levels, even the thinnest of leads will carry the signal without issues.

Spend the money on more music instead.

[gumby6371]

That's pure bovine manure.

No one can hear the difference between a £2 El-Cheapo minijack to RCA lead and one that costs £200. Literally no one.

Cables of sufficient current-carrying ability have no audible effect on an audio signal. If they do, they are by definition defective and you should get your money back. Spend the money on more music instead.

I'm afraid I must strongly disagree with this statement!!! 'spend money on music'????? do people still do that?????

But seriously Kozmonaut makes a valid point, for the vast majority of people 128bit MP3 is more than good enough and I would wager a very large percentage of people would struggle to tell the difference between that and the digital recording made in the studio when played on the same device. As we get older our ability to hear high and low range diminishes rapidly so by the time you can afford a top end system you can't flaming well hear it properly!
How many of you have sat in your pension age parents homes and asked, 'how long has the tv made that buzzing noise?' only to get the response, 'what buzzing noise?'.

Spending more is not a garantee of better quality, just look at any Apple product without the clever marketing and the glossy adverts and you'll see it's the same old 'made in a sweat shop in Korea' crap everyone else sells for half the price!

[KozmoNaut]

I'm afraid I must strongly disagree with this statement!!! 'spend money on music'????? do people still do that?????

I still buy LPs

And not just second hand, new releases too

And CDs and downloads, too. Actually, I've never bought as much music before in my life, as I have over the last year or so. As I've gotten more and more involved with various musicians and people behind the scenes, I've found it extremely hard to justify/excuse illegally downloading music.

[gumby6371]

no need to illegally download, its all available on various streaming services legally for free

[KozmoNaut]

Most streaming services you have to pay for in one way or another, either directly or through ads and/or lousy quality.

And I'll probably never get on the "everything in the cloud", "stream everything" bandwagon. I like to own things, not rent them.

Plus, a lot of the bands I listen to are independent, unsigned or otherwise free of the major labels, severely limiting the chances of finding them on streaming sites.