Sunseed Music

As far as popular technologies go, laptops are right up there, a primary reason for this is that they’re just so portable. They are used for work and entertainment, word processing and playing media files. The flexibility, functionality and portability of a laptop means that it is ideal for connecting to other parts of your life, in different areas of your home. One example of this is connecting your laptop to the technology on your hifi stand.

If you want to connect your laptop to your hi-fi system, it’s important to make sure you have the right equipment. You will need a laptop with a sound card, a program to play the media files, a 3.5mm male auxiliary cable, and a hifi stand. Many of the newer systems have an auxiliary in, it looks a lot like a headphone port, but some of the older ones don’t. You don’t need to worry if yours doesn’t have an auxiliary. There’s a solution. You can obtain a connector cable, such as a 3.5mm female to 2 RCA male. A hifi is built to work with a stripped down section of wire, so make sure to consult the manual for your model. You’ll find information on what type of connector you need there.

When deciding the software that you’ll use, remember that most operating systems come with a default media player. Windows has the windows media player, and Mac OS has iTunes and QuickTime. If you do not have those or do not like them, there are still many free alternatives. Such as VLC media player, which is built for most platforms. If you want to look for others, simply type ‘free media player’ into Google, or visit sourceforge.net

Now you’re ready to connect it up:

• Ensure your hifi system is plugged in and turned on
• and your laptop is powered up and you’re logged in
• Connect the 3.5mm auxiliary cable to the line out jack on your laptop and the auxiliary in jack on your hifi stand.
• If you necessary, set your systems input to auxiliary
• Try playing a media file to check the sound quality

Due to differences in the capabilities of individual systems, and other factors, your sound quality may not be as good as normal. Luckily, there are a few tips that have helped others and may be just what you need. To start, check the frequencies and equalizer that are on your hifi. Then check to make sure your computers output volume is at the right levels. Another possible way to increase the sound quality is to plug the auxiliary cable into the headphone jack on your computer, instead of the line out jack. Check your laptop’s sound manager and the media player’s equalizer to check everything’s as it should be.

If you’re having some teething problems getting the sound to work, there cn be a few possible causes to look into. First check all the connections and make sure all wires are plugged firmly in place. If they are in plugged in properly and still don’t work, it could be that one of them is faulty – this is more likely if you bought a used or second-hand wire. Check to see if they work on another piece of AV equipment to test. Make sure your laptops sound works, try playing something through the internal speakers if your laptop has them. Also make sure your speakers are good.