PC / iTunes for Retail Store?

Are there larger speakers available, or do I need to go from the PC to an amp and then to larger speakers? If so, any suggestions for cost-effective solutions? Yes, I'd recommend using an amp and regular stereo speakers. If you're more concerned about cost than audiophile sound quality, I'd suggest looking on http://ottawa.craigslist.org/search/ele?query=stereo&minAsk=min&maxAsk=max for used equipment. See this post on http://groups.google.ca/group/rec.audio.misc/msg/bb4f6f29b8bd4ad1: There is an awful lot of old stereo equipment around that is just waiting to be hooked up to your computer.

A Sonic Impact T-Amp is an inexpensive device that lets you use regular stereo speakers (non-computer speakers) with a computer.

Thanks for all the responses. To clear up a few questions... This is for a new store, so the 25-disc changer/amp combo is staying at the existing store. Sound quality really doesn't matter - this is a relatively small range of music and a very small part of our overall business. I'm just trying to come up with an cheap solution (we're a non-profit) that easily allows us to play any one of the 40 discs that a customer wants to hear ... and they usually only want to hear the first 30 seconds or so of 2-3 tracks. At this point I'm thinking I'll pick up a used amp/speakers from a thrift store coupled with the cables mentioned and see how it works. Though I will look at the powered speakers option as well. The main issue actually will be whether to run it from the office computer or the point-of-sale computer. I don't want to interrupt sales to change music, but the office is likely to be somewhat inaccessible from the store (don't know for sure - it's still being built!). While the Squeezebox solution does sound great, it's really beyond our price range.

forgot to add a link to what I'm talking about, heh: http://tinyurl.com/2wb9zs

One question for ya: 1) How far away is the office computer from the cd disc changer? I ask because your disc changer likely has an amp with a high chance of having auxiliary (RCA) inputs. In that case, just go to radioshack (or your preferred electronics/audiophile shop) and buy a "Y" cable. In case you don't know what a "Y" cable is, it's going to have two RCA jacks (left and right speaker channels) which plug into the aux/rca inputs on back of your AMP/cd player and the other end is going to be a 1/8th (headphone) jack that you can plug into your computer. If the computer is a bit far, you can try splicing the y cable with some speaker cable lying around, taping them up of course with electrical tape.

chimaera: Remember, this is for demoing music. You may not be able to hear the crappy 48khz resample that most PCs do, but there are definitely people that can. I bought a set of expensive speakers I thought weren't very good for music, and suffered with them for eight or ten months, before I figured out purely by accident that it was the 48khz resample that was making my music suck so bad through them. (this was an Audigy 2NX USB soundcard, which does a particularly awful resample.) If you did an A/B test between lossless and standard Windows Audio, you'd probably hear it... in some cases, it is VERY noticeable. With the 2NX, it's like someone throwing a towel over the speakers. His goal is to sell music, so he should present it as well as possible, no?

We use these 30 watt http://www.klipsch.com/products/details/promedia-ultra-2-0.aspx, which sound great, would fill a small store, and are reasonably priced. We run the music from a laptop. I got them on ebay for under $50.

I don't see how you need some of the studio-quality recommendations above to suit your needs (digital output/ASIO drivers/etc). And I fervently disagree with Malor: PC sound isn't bad. You're not doing multitrack recording, you don't need low-latency monitoring. Playing a bunch of songs in shuffle mode on iTunes (or Windows Media player, which can rip songs in lossless WMA format) is not a taxing mode of use for a computer. If you are happy with the rest of your system as it is right now, and only want to substitute a computer playing on Random for your existing CD changer, much of the above advice is sheer overkill. Just get a good mini-RCA adapter, and if you don't like the sound there (headphone output isn't the same as RCA line output, which may degrade the sound quality), step up (one notch, not some expensive studio card) to a sound card with RCA output. It's a simple install and you won't have to get any specialized amplification equipment, needlessly duplicating what you have. And remember when you're capturing all of your discs to do so in a lossless format so it has the same audio quality as the CDs you're selling.

At my store, we'll be using a HiFi system with USB + SD/MMC/MS/CF support. That way, we just load up a flash drive or memory card full of audio and the stereo does the rest itself. It's easy for staff to use and delivers great quality sound. I'm unsure of the spec, make and model as I've only seen them demoed but it will arrive on Tuesday so I might be able to advise on this route further at the time.