I'm new to this forum and would really appreciate anyone's help. I listen to music almost entirely online through my Napster subscription rarely, if ever, buying or downloading tracks. I have my pc connected up to a TEAC micro system via the audio output on the PC and into the Aux input on the micro system. The thing is, the sound quality is vastly inferior compared to cds through the same micro system. Is there anything I can do to improve the sound quality with my existing set up. Or, say for £500, what would be the best system for listening to music online.

What quality are you buying your tracks at? 128kbps? 256kbps? This will dramatically affect the sound quality.

If you have a digital out socket from your computer, you could go from your computer in to a DAC like the Beresford or you could use a USB DAC like the Trends Audio one (usually available on Ebay in the UK) for if your sound card doesn't have a digital socket and only has USB.

From the DAC, you connect to your hifi in the same way that you're doing now.

The Beresford costs about £90 and the Trends is in the same ballpark. The Beresford was reviewed on this site but has been improved since then.

I'd start there and then decide if your stereo is good enough.

Thanks both

Will - not really buying tracks just listening online. Could be why teh sounds not so good?

Christopher - Do you think streamers like the sonos or soundbridge will help with the sound quality? Wireless is not really an issue for me.

Not necessarily although they may well have better DACs than your soundcard and you may find that things sound better as a result of that.

A Squeezebox feeding an hifi should sound as good as a £200 CD player assuming that you're feeding it the same quality file as CD. Unfortunately the Napster files aren't quite that good.

A 128kbps Napster signal isn't going to be as good as CD although 128k can be pretty good and is better than DAB radio.

A computer with a standard soundcard is not that good which is why I suggested getting a DAC or a really good soundcard. After the DAC/Soundcard, I'd work through the chain bit by bit starting with the speakers as the priority.