Turn your computer into a music machine

Gary Krakow Columnist • E-mail

These days it’s a given: Buying and listening to CDs is passé. Portable music means an iPod or other MP3 player. If most of what you like to listen to now isn't already stored on your computer, it will be soon.

But what if you want to listen to those computer-stored tunes on your big stereo system? You could just plug your computer directly into your stereo system, but the sound quality will be questionable, running as it will off your PC's 10-cent audio chip.

A much better option: Attach a digital-to-audio converter (DAC) box, sort of an outboard sound card for your computer that then connects to your stereo, and prepare to be amazed. Under some circumstances it can sound better than a $10,000 hi-fi component.

I’ve been testing one such device from Wavelength Audio. Its creator, Gordon Rankin, is not only an audiophile, but he’s also a designer of computer equipment. So, it was only natural that he put his two loves together and came up with The Brick, which converts the digital output from the computer to analog and filters it through a 12AU7 tube.  

This Brick plugs into your computer via a USB port (it can use either version 1.1 or 2.0, but the latter is preferable since it handles audio much faster) and into a stereo system via standard RCA jacks. There’s no on/off switch; the Brick simply mutes itself when the computer is off or sleeping.

Installation is unbelievably simple. You plug in the power, then attach the Brick to your computer and stereo. Any Mac, PC or Linux computer capable of USB plug-and-play shouldn’t have any problems. On a PC, the box self-installs in 30 seconds or less. Each computer I tried this with (3 Windows machines, the Mac mini, a Linspire laptop) recognized the device and immediately installed it as the primary sound device. No problems.

At 6.25 by 6.25 by 3.75 inches, the Brick is a basically a small black box, very similar in size to a Mac mini. (That might be a coincidence. Might not. See below.) There's nothing small about the sound quality, however, which is better than most CD players you can buy. That includes a number of top-of-the-line boxes that sell for thousands of dollars.

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