How To Upgrade Your Powered Computer Speakers

Powered computer speakers are one of the hottest categories in home audio right now. As we all spend more time at our desks at home, adding a great sounding pair of speakers certainly makes listening to music much more enjoyable. Heck, they even make all those videos calls much easier to understand what our co-workers and are saying. Plus, anything is better than the built-in computer speakers. 

If you have not made the move to upgrade to powered speakers for your desk, check out our best computer speakers. This article is for those of you who have already installed your powered speakers and want to get the most out of them. For a lot of us, they are a source of music for 8-10 hours during the day, so why not do a few things to make them sound even better?

We will go over a few tips and tricks, and let you know how hard each one is to implement and the estimated cost.

Set Them Up Correctly

Skill Level Needed: Pretty Easy
Cost: Zero

For this one, all you need is a tape measure. If you set up your speakers properly in relation to your ears, while you are working you’ll hear a nice wide soundstage in front of you. This makes music more fun and pleasant in the long run. All you need to do is make sure each speaker is the same distance from your ears.

The easy way to do this is just put your chair where it will be when you are seated at your desk and measure from each speaker to the center point of your chair. We like to try to go for an equilateral triangle or close to it. So if your speakers are 3’ from the back of your chair, put them about 3’ apart to create the triangle. 

We also suggest you experiment with angling them in a little bit. The further apart they are, the more you will want to angle them in. Play something with a single voice. When you have them set up properly, the performer should sound like they are coming right out of your computer screen!

Finally, most powered speakers have a left and right speaker. Confirm these are in the correct position.

Add Some Stands

Skill Level Needed: Super Easy
Cost: Typically Around $30-$50

Just about every powered speaker company makes a set of stands for their speakers. These serve two purposes. First, they angle the speaker up so it's pointing more at your ears. This gives a much taller sound to the speaker which makes your music sound more like the band is in the room. Secondly, the stand will help isolate the speaker from your desktop. Your desk will resonate with the speaker which adds some coloration to the sound.

After you add the stands, go back through our first tip on setting up your speakers. 

We have links here to some of our most popular powered speaker stands. Adding a pair of stands will not only improve the sound, but it will make your speakers look pretty cool too!

Improve the DAC

Skill Level Needed: Pretty Easy
Cost: $129.95 and Up

First, we need to tell you what a DAC is. This is the device that takes the digital music signal coming from your computer and changes it into music. DAC is short for digital to analog converter. DAC’s are in everything we use, from cell phones to TVs. Since they are used everywhere, there is a huge range in quality and price. All computers have a DAC inside and it may be you are sending the sound from your computer to your powered speakers with an analog cable, using the DAC inside the computer.

Or, some computer speakers have a DAC built-in where you run a USB cable from your computer to your powered speakers.

As high-performance headphones have become super popular for many people, the better headphones showed how bad the DAC’s in computers sounded. A whole new category of tiny USB DAC’s that sound great has emerged in the last few years. These little devices simply plug into a USB port on your computer and have a small mini plug connection for an audio cable or headphone cable. All you have to do is plug one of these into your computer, connect a cable and plug the other end into the analog input on your powered speakers.

The difference between the computer DAC or the DAC built into your speakers will astound you. We have had many customers write to us to tell us how much better things sounded with an external DAC. The better your speakers are, the more you will appreciate it too. 

Our favorite DAC for the money is the AudioQuest DragonFly Black. At only Regular Price $129.95 $129.95 this is a great upgrade for any pair of computer speakers! 

IsoAcoustics 130 Stands

Skill Level Needed: Fairly Easy
Cost: $89

First, we have to warn you, if you get these, your desk will look like you are now a recording engineer. That may be good or bad, but what we can tell you is the sonic improvement with these stands is big. IsoAcoustics is a Canadian company born out of the broadcast and studio industry. These stands will fit most powered speakers that are larger than 5.1” wide and 6” deep. This makes them pair up great with the Peachtree M series, Kanto Tuk, YU4, and YU6, and HD6 models, and most of the Klipsch powered speakers.

They can be adjusted to 14 different heights and have variable tilt as well. Assembling them is a little time consuming which is why we listed this as fairly easy. The IsoAcoustics technology is really neat though. They are all about reducing energy from other surfaces getting back into the speaker cabinet. These are taking the recording industry by storm and engineers all over the world are putting the bigger models under their studio monitors. We decided to try a pair under a pair of Peachtree M24’s and were blown away at the improvement. If you want more info, here is a link to our article on IsoAcoustics. 

Once you have your speakers on the ISO-130 stands, spend some time dialing in their position and you’ll soon have a big smile on your face!

Summary

Enjoying music while we work sure makes the day go by faster and for most of us, improves productivity as well. These enhancements and tweaks will make your music more enjoyable during the day and even more fun when you crank it up after the work day is over.

If you have any questions at all about which of these are the best fit for your system, feel free to reach out to us via phone, chat or email.