# Better laptop sound



## gilbypoleadamson (Feb 8, 2007)

So Ive got a pretty decent setup for music right now consisting of a Yamaha receiver, two Polk Monitor 50's and two Marantz 6-Gs coupled with a sub I built with help from home theater shack! Now I realize that that is no where close to audiophile but since I am a broke college student I feel as if its pretty good especially for the price. My problem now is that my main music source is my laptop and while Its a decent laptop made for media (HP HDX-18T) its still a laptop so the sound leaves alot to be desired. My thoughts now are that an external sound card would be the best bet for my current setup to get the best sound for the least money. So my question is whether there is something I should do that would be better then an external sound card or if not then what would a good choice be for stereo music with the best quality possible. I do have an optical input in my receiver so a sound with that would be preferable.


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## sparky77 (Feb 22, 2008)

What model laptop is it? Some laptops have the option to use the headphone output as a coaxial digital output which you can connect to your receiver and transfer the sound as pcm audio. Newer models can even pass the dolby digital 5.1 signal just by setting the sound card option to 5.1 and the playback software automatically switches on the capability.


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## gilbypoleadamson (Feb 8, 2007)

I mentioned in the OP its an HP HDX 18T


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## nholmes1 (Oct 7, 2010)

You could always use a DAC to get the best sound but that won't be as cheap as an external sound card.


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## gilbypoleadamson (Feb 8, 2007)

I've seen a lot of mentions of dac but I'm still not totally sure exactly what it is and how it differs from an externel soundcard


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## gilbypoleadamson (Feb 8, 2007)

Just found out some more about it, digital to analog converter, the question I have now is wouldn't my reciever do that already? If I got something like the creative labs x-fi usb soundcard and used the optical output wouldn't I already be going from pure digital to the reciever where it would convert it and play it through the speakers?


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## nholmes1 (Oct 7, 2010)

Yes you would be doing to D/A conversion in the receiver if hooked up as suggested, the DAC does bypass a sound card entirely by being connected via USB and thus can get past K-mixer or anything which could effect the sound.


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## sparky77 (Feb 22, 2008)

It appears your laptop does not have an s/pdif output function, but it does have HDMI. Does your receiver have HDMI? If so, problem solved. Otherwise I would check out the recommended external soundcards in the rew forum if you plan to do any eq'ing later on, most of those should have an optical or coaxial output on them too.


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## gilbypoleadamson (Feb 8, 2007)

Yea I don't have HDMI on my reciever, its probably about 10 years old. I'm looking for as good sound quality as possible but at the same time I don't have an audiophile system so I don't know if dac would be worth the price, from what I've found it looks like an external sound card would be around 50 and a usb DAC would be more like 150. Any suggestions on either a good sound card or a good DAC and any imput on how much the sound quality would differ. Thanks for your suggestions so far, I've already learned a lot more about what I need and reasons as to the lackluster sound from the stock laptop


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## sparky77 (Feb 22, 2008)

If you want something inexpensive you can get a Sabrent External Soundbox, and connect to your receiver with an optical cable. I used mine for quite a while before getting a receiver with HDMI, never had any problems with it.


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## TypeA (Aug 14, 2010)

Fiio combo dac and headphone amp (see links in my signature) are what I use, as holmes mentioned it completely bypasses the laptops headphone out and onboard audio. Great solution and multi purpose, both type headphone outputs on the amp (as well as a analog two channel audio output) and a portable dac (if you want to strap the e7 to your ipod or phone or whatever). Combo can be had for less than $200


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## gilbypoleadamson (Feb 8, 2007)

Well it seems like the Fiio E9 looks like a good solution but I dont have much of a need for the E7 so I wouldnt get the combo. Can it be used by itself as a DAC connected to my computer via USB and then audio out through the RCA jacks?


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## TypeA (Aug 14, 2010)

I think you got the model numbers reversed but yeah you can use just the e7 dac, its charged by the usb connection and would require this 3.5mm to rca break-out cable...
http://www.amazon.com/RiteAV-3-5mm-...1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1302567715&sr=1-1


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## gilbypoleadamson (Feb 8, 2007)

I did mean the E9 but I think you answered my question anyways which is that the E9 does nothing without the E7. My reason is that since I don't have great headphones I don't have a need to amplify them so all I really needed was a DAC for my laptop to stereo. Id like something with rca only to bypass the need for a headphone jack such as the Nuforce uDac-2 I think. But if there is a reason why I should go E7 then I will it just seems like its really only worth it if you have the E7 E9 combo since I don't need a headphone amp as of now.


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## gilbypoleadamson (Feb 8, 2007)

Last thing, after contemplating pricing and other factors im not sure whether I really need a DAC or just an optical out. Any idea how much better it would sound on my system with a DAC? And would a USB to optical sound better or would it still be being driven by my soundcard?


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## gdstupak (Jul 13, 2010)

gilbypoleadamson said:


> ....and used the optical output wouldn't I already be going from pure digital to the reciever where it would convert it and play it through the speakers?


This is how I do it with an M-Audio Sonica. 
It's been faultless for over 7yrs.


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## gilbypoleadamson (Feb 8, 2007)

willowyok said:


> Better Laptop sound is High quality and wide speaker on laptop. Increase the Volume from Sound setting, installed proper sound driver, use legal software for sound and use other software music instruments.


I'm positive it has nothing to do with software problems, I've got all the drivers updated and everything and nothing will change the fact that the soundcard on most laptops is horrendously bad. I think after much deliberation I've decided on the E7/E9 combo, from almost every review I've seen its good and there were only like 2 reviews on amazon where they said it was bad but considering the ratio I think ill risk it. Especially since that's pretty much the first budget DAC that anyone mentions.


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## sparky77 (Feb 22, 2008)

The reason why I recommend the cheap breakout box I linked is to use the optical cable to the receiver so that you can use the optical cable to prevent the possibility of ground loops and electrical interference in the signal path. It's just my opinion but I think the signal should be kept in the digital domain until it hits the receiver if you want to maintain signal integrity. I prefer to stick with the K.I.S.S. principle whenever possible.


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## gilbypoleadamson (Feb 8, 2007)

That was my first thought, the only thing that makes me wonder is where the signal comes from, essentially is the internal sound card acting as a digital to analog which is the source of my bad sound? Would that just totally bypass anything my computer does besides acting as a source?


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## sparky77 (Feb 22, 2008)

Part of the problem stems from the software, some programs don't handle the digital to digital processing as well as others, which most of the issue is volume control. Regardless of the programs used you have to keep all volume levels at max and the bass/treble controls at zero or disable equalization. As far as software goes, the last I new is that Winamp did the closest to bit for bit reproduction, and surprisingly windows media player was second. But in my case, I'm not worried about bit for bit reproduction, I use winamp for the convenience of queuing songs in the playlist, automatic crossfading, and volume normalization from track to track, the last two from plugins.


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## gilbypoleadamson (Feb 8, 2007)

Alright well that sounds good, I might just pick up one of those, its definitly much cheaper then a DAC, I just wasn't 100% sure it would increase sound quality if it was still being processed by something else inferior to what I want. I guess If its all digital though till the reciever then that would be doing a majority of the work in terms of sound quality


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