If you’re planning to build a desktop computer, you might be wondering what components you’ll need.
You already know you’ll need a PC case, motherboard, CPU, RAM, PSU, and a PC monitor.
But how do you get sound out of your desktop PC? Do you also need to buy external speakers?
In this post, we’ll discuss whether desktop computers need speakers.
Here’s Whether Desktop Computers Need Speakers:
Desktop computers don’t have built-in multimedia speakers. They only have a tiny motherboard speaker, which can only create error beep codes. So it is necessary to use external speakers or headphones to get the sound out of desktop computers.
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Do Desktop Computers Have Built-in Speakers?
Desktop computers don’t have built-in multimedia speakers. They only have a tiny motherboard speaker, which can only create error beep codes.
So you have to use external speakers or headphones to get sound from your desktop PC. You can connect external speakers to your PC’s line-out port and headphones to the headphone jack.
Do Computer Monitors Have Built-in Speakers?
Some computer monitors have built-in speakers, but these built-in speakers usually have poor sound quality and low volume.
So it is always better to use dedicated external speakers than your monitor’s built-in speakers.
Do You Need External Speakers For A Desktop PC?
As we’ve explained, desktop PCs don’t have built-in multimedia speakers. Built-in speakers of PC monitors also have a poor sound quality and low volume.
So you need to get an external PC speaker if you want a louder higher-quality sound. You can easily plug an external speaker into your PC’s line-out port.
However, if you only want to use headphones, you don’t need to get an external speaker. You can directly plug your headphones into your PC’s headphone jack without using any additional components.
Should You Plug External Speakers To The PC Or Monitor?
Some monitors have a 3.5 mm headphone jack. They receive digital audio via HDMI or DisplayPort cable and convert it to analog audio using their built-in digital-to-analog converters (DACs). They also have built-in headphone amplifiers to amplify the analog audio signal. Then they output the analog audio through their 3.5 mm headphone jacks.
Therefore, you can connect external speakers and headphones to your PC or to your monitor’s headphone jack. But PCs typically have better audio hardware than monitors, so it is usually better to plug external speakers and headphones directly into your PC rather than your monitor.
Audio is only an additional feature of a monitor. So monitors usually have lower-quality DACs and amps compared to PCs. PCs also have line-out ports that can give a less noisy audio signal than headphone jacks.
Final Thoughts
Desktop computers don’t have built-in multimedia speakers. They only have a tiny motherboard speaker to create error beep codes.
So you need external speakers or headphones to get sound out of your desktop PC. You can connect speakers to your PC’s line-out port and headphones to the headphone jack.
Some monitors also have built-in speakers, but these speakers usually have poor sound quality and lower volume. So you should get an external speaker for your desktop PC even if your monitor has built-in speakers.