Music from my computer notebook - how?


i'm ordering my first (!) notebook and i want to know what my hardware "set-up" should be so that i can download music from the net and listen to it off my computer when i'm travelling. am i way off base or is there a way to do this? also, i'd love to download the music with as much integrity as possible so if i do burn some cds from the notebook, the quality of the sound will be at least halfway decent. any guidance re hardware/software would be greatly appreciated.

gregg
greggtrgi
As long as it has a sound card and Windows media player, your good to go. If you are just ordering it, Windows media player should already be installed with Windows. Windows media player plays allot of differant audio and video formats. You could also download Real Audio.
I believe the best quality source is the CD ROM drive that comes in most laptops. If it has built in speakers it also has a sound card. I use mine with some HD600's and it is ok. I am sure an headphone amp would be better. - Chris
I have heard that windows media player is not as good as Winamp, which is available for free download and can be skinned (customized). That said, I tried it and could not get it to play CD's. I am going to reinstall sometime.

I would recommend connecting your headphone output to a "line" in input on a receiver/ integrated/ preamp. You can get a 1/8" mini stereo to male phono cord at the Radioshack for this purpose. Then you can connect it to any combo of audio stuff that you want.

However, the best thing you could do is connect your USB or IEEE Firewire outputs to a separate D/A converter. Needless to say this is challenging because there is not much equipment of SW for this purpose. Have fun.