Pro Audio Equipment

You Can Connect Your Laptop to Your Hifi System in These Easy Steps

Laptops are really popular gadgets, this is mainly down to the fact that they’re just so portable and easy to move around from place to place. 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.

Before you start the hook-up process, ake sure you’ve got your hands on all the things you’ll need. You will need:

• a laptop with a sound card
• a program to play the media files
• a 3.5mm male auxiliary cable
• 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 is 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. There you wil find what connector is appropriate.

As for the software, most operating systems come with a media player. For example Windows Media player on Windows and iTunes or QuickTime on Mac OS. 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. For other programs, Google free media player, or visit sourceforge.net

Now you are ready to connect it all. Make sure your hi-fi system is plugged in and turned on, and your laptop is powered up and 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 need to, set your systems input to auxiliary, then 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. When the program is open, check that the equalizer levels are what you’d expect and that they look good on your laptop’s sound manager too.

Sometimes things go wrong, and here are some common istakes made when connecting a laptop to a hifi system. Firstly, make sure that all of the wires and cables are plugged in properly, pulling the hifi system forwards or moving the laptop could have caused some of them to come loose. If you bought any cables used and have not done so, test them to make sure they work. To check whether the sound on the laptop is ok, try playing something through the internal speakers on the laptop. Also make sure your speakers are good.