Login

u/COG_KraKus

Image 1 — Found old Sony CFS-710S speakers at home and now I’m wondering if they’re worth using for a desktop setup
Image 2 — Found old Sony CFS-710S speakers at home and now I’m wondering if they’re worth using for a desktop setup
Image 3 — Found old Sony CFS-710S speakers at home and now I’m wondering if they’re worth using for a desktop setup
▲ 7 r/diyaudio

Found old Sony CFS-710S speakers at home and now I’m wondering if they’re worth using for a desktop setup

So there’s this old Sony radio/cassette player (CFS-710S) at my house that I never paid much attention to until recently, when I started looking into getting some cheap bookshelf speakers for my PC setup.

The radio has detachable speakers, and after looking at them I thought maybe I could reuse them instead of buying new speakers. The problem is that they’re passive speakers, and I don’t really know much about audio equipment.

From what I’ve searched so far, apparently I could buy a cheap mini amp, connect the speakers to it, and then connect the amp to my PC using a 3.5mm jack.

My doubts/questions are:

  1. Are these speakers actually 5.8W? In the manual for the regular CFS-710 it says 5W, but in the CFS-710S manual it says 5.8W, so I’m confused about the actual specs.

Also, I can’t find any info about the speaker impedance/ohms. Maybe because I’m inexperienced with this stuff, but also because there seems to be very little information online about these speakers specifically.

That leads to my next question:
what mini amp would you recommend for these speakers, and would a mini amp actually get the most out of them?

ChatGPT suggest:

  • PAM8403
  • TPA3110
  • TPA3116

Before noticing these speakers, I was considering buying some cheap bookshelf speakers like the Edifier MR3, since I don’t really have the budget for expensive speakers. But now I’m wondering if these old Sony speakers might actually be decent enough.

  1. About powering the mini amp: The amp diagram says it needs a 5V power supply.

Would the easiest way be powering it through USB from the PC? If I understand correctly, USB-A already provides 5V by default.

Or if I powered it from the wall, would I need an adapter/power supply and extra stuff?

  1. I also own a Topping DX1 DAC/amp for headphones. Would there be any noticeable difference between:
  • plugging the mini amp directly into the PC vs
  • connecting it through the DX1 first?

Final question: Is all of this actually worth doing for these speakers, or would I just be better off buying proper bookshelf speakers instead?

I’m not expecting amazing audiophile quality or anything, I just thought it might be a fun project if the speakers are actually decent.

u/COG_KraKus — 13 hours ago