Hello and Set-up question - Laptop to Amp

Bod

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Oct 31, 2012
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Hi all,

I'm Bod from Bristol. First post on here, just this week I made my first foray into Hifi, retired my eight year old £20 dixons cd player and got myself a Denon DM39 with Cambridge Audio S30s. Based on reviews and forum chatter on this site, my own tight budget and advice from the guy in Richer sounds, I'm extremely happy with it. Reinvigorated my love for listening to entire albums on CD, I'm hearing stuff on some of my faveorite songs that I never heard before, drums and bass are so clear now.

I've bored all my friends contantly going on about how much i like my new gadget so I figured I'd come on here where people wont get bored of me so quickly.

I've come across one problem though. I want to be able to plug in my laptop to the speakers via the Denon as its own speakers are beyond pathetic. I figured I'd just need to plug in a cable to the laptop headphones out socket and into the analogue in (red/white) sockets in the back of the denon, set it to Analouge and off I go. But no, apart from an unpleasant and proably unhealty hiss from the speakers, no sound.

So, what am I doing wrong? Do I need need something inbetween (DAC? preamp?). Is it my laptop? (note my laptop doesn't have a HDMI socket so that's not an option for me). Or is it just the cable, I found it and believe its the correct one but where the sockets on the Denon are Red and White the jacks on the cable are Red and Black, not sure if that means anything. I know you can plug in a TV through the Analoge in ports to I should be able to plug a laptop in right?

Not being able to run my laptop through the speakers with the upcoming party season fast approching is going to me a real drawback.

Thanks
 

Fuzzy Bear

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Hello Bod, welcome to the forum.

What you're doing with the cable should, in theory work. You're probably using something like this?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/3-5mm-Jack-Phono-Audio-Cable/dp/B000Q6LSWM/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1351850133&sr=8-2

So it sounds like a dodgy cable. HDMI won't come into it.

Best bet is to borrow/buy a new cable and test it out.

A DAC is to improve the sound output from the laptop by using the DACs soundcard over the laptops internal card. Most likely fed to the dac by USB.

What software are you using on the laptop to pay music?
 

fatman

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Don't suppose your headphone out is digital too? mac's are, not sure about any other laptops.

DM39 has an optical input and the DAC in there will be better than that in the laptop.

One of these would help take a digital output from USB - http://www.maplin.co.uk/usb-external-sound-box-34128?c=froogle&u=34128&t=module&c=54264&u=skim1044x500158x4525e63622aab3e2ac1cc395d6fb25aa

Or, pick a budget and look into DACs with USB input.

I'd definitely look into converting the digital music from the laptop externally (either seperate DAC or onboard the Denon)
 

Bod

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Getting close, seems it is just a dodgy cable. I'm playing stuff straight from youtube at the minute. Definately using the right socket. Doubt my headphones are digital, its an oldish dell netbook. Just plugged it all in and hey presto music and no hiss, then I moved the cable and the vocals cut out but the backing track kept playing, then moved it again and the hiss came back.

So it seems it's the cable. Thanks for the quick responses.
 

jjbomber

Well-known member
When funds allow, pick up a Onkyo ND-S1. They go for about £70 on eBay. Feed it from the USB of the Dell and use the digital output to connect to the Digital input of the Denon. Prepare to be amazed. Then you can really bore your friends with how good it is!
 

drummerman

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If your laptop has bluetooth you can also stream wirelessly for about twenty pounds that way with good results. If you dont have BT, cheap usb dongles are available.

regards
 

Big Chris

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One word of warning. I can connect my Dell laptop to my stereo through a similar cable to yours, but I don't as it sounds horrible. I put the blame solely at the feet of the laptop's headphone output, as connecting my Pure DAB radio to my amp through the same cable sounds great.

I'd be looking at some kind of DAC or bluetooth device if I were you.
 
A

Anonymous

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Hi, I use a laptop and a USB dac, you'll get much better quality using a standalone dac rather than the one in an old laptop.

if you go that route you can use Winamp, foobar or monkey media players, all of which can be controlled via phone or tablet apps if they're all on the same wireless network.

One thing to watch out for is that all your windows sound alerts will come through onto your system. Disable audio alerts through control panel, or if you want even better results and no windows interference, then you can bypass the laptop sound card by using a plugin that allows kernel streaming. The Winamp and Foobar plugins are easily available, don't know about Monkey though.
 

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