Can laptop audio be played through a stereo receiver?

[Brownian Motion]

And if so, what would I need in order to do it?

[Uncle Skid]

There's at least two ways to do this:

1) Get a cable that goes from the "line out" jack on your laptop (3.5mm) to dual RCA plugs. The RCA plugs connect to one of the line inputs (tape/vcr/cd/etc) on your receiver.

2) For a little more money, here's a device that plugs into USB on your laptop. This bypasses the internal sound card on your laptop, theoretically resulting in better sound. It also comes with a very nice 30' cable.

I originally had mine hooked up the first way, and about a month ago picked up the HiFi-Link. The sound does seem noticeably better, and I'm not an audiophile.

Hope this helps!

[Brownian Motion]

Thanks Skid! This is exactly what I need.

[Sundog]

You could also get one of these....

Outlaw RR2150

[(BB)]

For the mighty mac minority the iMic works wonderful, and I understand you PC folks can use it too. Same idea as the link provided above. on systemX Audio MIDI settings let you control input output prefs. So simple even I figured it out.

[Claude]

Try the $5 cable first, and if you're not happy with the sound quality you can always check for an external USB sound card.

I have two laptops, a 2001 Dell Latitude for work and a 2005 IBM Thinkpad R51 at home. With both of them, the sound of the Line out is just good enough for movies, but not really for music.

There is noticable hiss when listening with earbuds/headphones, and when I use the laptop for browsing the internet while listening to music, there are interferences between the graphics and sound chips, which create noises in the laptop speakers and the line out signal. That also happens with the sound chip of my desktop PC, BTW. Only when I don't touch the laptop (when watching a movie), the sound is "clean".

Edited March 11, 2006 by Claude