Which laptops have digital out?

[basshound]

As subject line,which laptops have digital out to enable connection to a DAC?

 

[John Duncan]

Macbooks do. Any windows laptop you'll be at the mercy of the exact configuration of the laptop you buy - some might have a particular sound card installed that does, some may not - so saying "Asus" or "Dell" or any other manufacturer isn't going to help really....

 

[basshound]

Was thinking of a cheap windows laptop and have looked at some of the big manufacturers` websites but as you say optical out doesn`t appear on the spec lists

 

[John Duncan]

Doesn't have to be optical - I think some Dells implement it via electrical (but via a strange s-video route, for some reason). Price is no guide either - my £900 Vaio doesn't have one. An external USB sound card will be a cheap (if messy) solution, but unless you can find one specifically with an out on the soundcard, I'd go down the route of a USB DAC or Airport Express.

 

[John Duncan]

And the word 'cheap' in your description almost certainly precludes it...

 

[Anonymous]

Second JohnDuncan's comments.

You may not be able to achieve a bit perfect output with some onboard chipsets. Poorly written drivers, lack of ASIO/WASAPI support ... Buying an external DAC is the way to go in this instance.

Mind you, there is no reason why shouldn't try the output from the laptop first to see if you're happy with the sound.

 

[Tonya]

Most of the mid/high end Acer models do. It's quite cleverly concealed in the headphone socket, so not immediately apparent to the naked eye.
The giveaway is when you go to insert a headphone plig into it, then you can see the tell-tale red light shining through the hole.

If your laptop doesn't have this feature, you can always slam in an external sound card based on the PCMCIA card format.

There is a vast range of high end cards to choose from, including products like the Echo Indigo, DigiGram VX-Pocket, etc.

Creative manufacture one with LucasFilm THX approval the Audigy 2 zs card as well, this model most certainly sports a digital I/O port, with 7.1 decoding and a signal to noise figure of over 100dB.

The internal soundcards are usually hampered by the flood of electronic noise generated by the main processor and other RF emitting components mounted so closely on the motherboard, without the proper shielding.
Going with an external card will almost always result in a drastic improvement in audio quality.