Ruffleduffle

the typical orientation for the cpu cooler would be to put it in-line with your case airflow

*bump*

i feel the same, but there is no reason to be rude about it to a person who doesnt know any better

you need a dac to convert the audio from the digital signal to an analog signal, the amp will then basically just make the analog signal loud enough so you can drive your headphones with it. There si a great topic about this on the forum:

look for the beyerdynamic dt 990 edition. From about 200 bucks or so i feel like you start to hit very diminishing returns

nothing is waterPROOF. wd-40 will help in the same way as you keep bare metal covered in a light oil to prevent rust. It will help to prevent corrosion but you will need to reapply it fairly regularly and it will be an absolute dust and filth magnet so you will need to clean it often to avoid damage due to dustbuildup, since it will now stick to any surface you applied the oil onto. Also you will have very hard time cleaning any light oils from all the little pockets of electronics, you will probably need to use brake-cleaner in an ultrasonic bath.

it sounds like you have quite the collection there, do you have an opinion on virtual equalizers for windows?

i dont really subscribe to different genres of music needing different amps and dacs. For 500 bucks you can jump right into the prosumer or even entry enthusiast side of things. For Amps and Dacs I can recommend Schiit audio, Those leave you with about 250 bucks for the cans itself. Those you basically have to try out, you know find the stuff YOU like. I am pretty partial to my beyerdynamics dt 990 pro 250ohm, i just love em to bits, but they are not for everyone, they are very flat and accurate. But i think they are good starting points since they only run for about 120 euros. The HD 600's by sennheiser also very well regarded by all the audionerds. I recommend you maybe find a Store where you can try different headphones or just order a bunch and send back the ones you dont like. A pretty good resource for finding stuff you want is https://www.rtings.com/ they have a bunch of frequency response curves and many different products. Also think about how noisy your environment is aswell as if you mind others hearing waht you are listening, because open back headphones will have less thumpy bass and leak sound like crazy, but deliver a wider sound "it feels more immersive". If you want to tweak the sound you can also try digital equalizers to really finetune a setup for what you want, i am just now getting started in those tho. I am just reading up on this piece of software https://sourceforge.net/projects/equalizerapo/ , maybe you want to give it a shot

what about microphones and other input devices?

if you provide us with a bit more information we could probably help you better

Welcome to the forum! I myself are not big into wireless earbuds, but look what codecs the headphones and your laptop supprt, they will need to support aptX LL or some other form of low latency codec. I myself use Plantronics backbeat pro 2 for watching movies on the train. Also if the headphones sound like abolute rubbish you need to look into the sound settings and either disable the headphones as communications device or swap to the output option that doesnt say "hands-free" or similiar

please dont be rude, many people dont know any better. I always tell my friends what a great and welcoming community this is. I understand that the whole "its best for gaming, cuz it says gaming on the box" is very frustrating, especially for audiostuff, but please try to bring the thirsty people to the well and dont laugh at them for not having any water to drink

probably not. i would recommend you get a good pair of headphones, none of that rgb/gamer rubbish, but something from sennheiser, beyerdynamic or comparable. From a company that has actual experience making headphones, then just add a modmic from antlion to the side of it, those run for about 50 bucks if memory serves right. From there get an interface that supports usb-audio and you are off to the races with a setup that will last you for decades because good audiogear does not get worse. Companies make headphones that have designs that are 40 years old. If it sounds good now, it will sound good in 20 years. Also a setup like this gives you the option to upgrade different pieces of it over the course of your life. You can swap microphones, switch interfaces, ad mixers and amps, all at your leisure and explore the world of audiogear. you can probalby get all that for like 250 pounds, if you want I can give you some pointers to get started you are welcome

you can get bluetooth transmitters and receivers that support aptXLL codec that have almost no lag in the audio, but they are not as cheap

Android one is a lightweight version of Android that can only run certain apps. Very popular in India because it can allow phones with cheaper hardware to run very snappy. Nokia has many android one devices and i believe they are one of the main forces behind it, but i am not shure about that part

only go with the beyerdynamics 990s if you have an almost completly quiet room. I am using them and they dont block any surrounding noise. Also realize that open back headphone are severly lacking in the "thumpy base" department but provide a very wide soundstage. When looking into amps and dacs you need to consider what you are going to use this for mainly. I just drive them with a behringer xenyx 302usb because i use them mainly for voicecalls and content consumption, allthough i am looking into getting a headphone amp and maybe a different dac, but for right now the multiple track input and output of this little dac/mixer is very handy as a jack of all trades/ master of none device. If you want to crank the headphones up a bit there is some audible noise but for my normal listening volume it works good.

that is not really a problem tho. AMDs stock cooler is actually pretty good and if you want to chase some higher power targets you can just slap some 20 pound aircooler on it and call it a day

because the stock cooler comes pre applied stuff, that will be good enough for the 10400 since you wont be doing any manual overclocking and eventually swap for a cheap aircooler later on

no there is a cooler included with the cpu, also you wont need the thermal paste

if you are shopping in this price bracket i would advice to stay away from "gamer" or "rgb" stuff this will last you years: https://www.newegg.com/logitech-mk120-920-002565-usb-wired/p/N82E16823126097?Item=N82E16823126097 also i would look into amd cpus for this price, they generally perform better for less money

you can start with the cheap membrane keyboard from logitech that you can find for like 10 bucks ive had the thing for years when i started out

if you want to do animation and blender you should have at least 16 gigs of ram, preferably more

tbh i would wait a few months for demand to normalize and then look again

Hello there and welcome to the forum! Do you need peripherals like Monitor, mouse, keyboard? Do you have an old PC you can steal the harddrive from? 800 pounds for a decent little rig is doable, especially if you are willing to buy a used graphics card, cpu, mainboard and memory. there are very good deals to be had

i would recommend to not spin up the drive until you could backup the important bits