laptop to receiver questions

[jimmydj]

Hi I have a 6.1 receiver I use with 4 speakers 2 run to the front main Amd 2 to the surround land r don't know why but when the stereo is on all speakers work fine, I have a laptop with an1/8in to rca splitter run out of the headphones jack, I've tried hooking the rca from the pc's headphone jack , Amd no matter where I hook up the rca's to cd,dvd, input etc, the volume is cut by at least half, and sound only comes out of the two front speakers at about 50%, but when I turn on the radio all speakers work ????? Any thoughts I don't know how to hook up my pc any other way to male it work

 

[Adam]

Hi, Jimmy.

Regarding the low volume: the laptop headphone jack volume is controlled by software, so check and adjust your laptop's volume setting.

As for the two rear speakers being used with the radio tuner, but not with another input: check your surround sound settings. Radio music won't normally play through anything but the front two speakers, so you probably have some surround sound mode turned on for the tuner. Try setting a surround sound mode for the input that you use with the laptop (such as "all channel stereo" or similar). If you have questions about that, just let us know which receiver you have, and we can look up the manual.

 

[weblearner]

Hello Jimmy,
you can use player equalization for better volume output in case of laptop. Some player give high volume equalization settings for laptop. I suggest you that If you want to get good volume or high volume from your laptop you can use player. If i say wrong please pardon me.

 

[jimmydj]

Hi Thx I do not have a manual that is a big problem and I can't find one I think that would help greatly I have a older Denon avr95 I cannot find a manual anywhere any suggestions, Thx for the replies

 

[jimmydj]

Can anybody recommend a cheap 2.1ch to 5.1 ext soundcard that will work with win 7 so I can hook up my computer to my receiver, (has no hdmi ins)

 

[JMJVK]

EDIT:

In windows, to use ANY digital interconnect, you'll need to set the speaker variables to multi-channel in the Windows config pannel, and with most software media players, like VLC, you have to manually set the output mode to multi-channel/S/PDIF for multi channel to work, or it will favor a two channel PCM or revert to analog.

/EDIT:



I have an old Creative Soundblaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 Pro USB which I used prior to owning a PC with HDMI. It's still hooked to my stereo receiver, using the TOSLink. Friends who show up at home with their laptops connect to it, and it works well. You plug it in, Windows does it's little driver "found device thing", then you right click the speaker icon in the tray bar and set the playback device default to "SB X-Fi" and it works.

I suggest you look it up.


Depending on the age of your system, specially if it's a laptop without HDMI, it's quite possible your 3.5mm Headphone jack may also be used as a S/PIF output, so check your system's documentation. If does serve dual the purpose of handling both analog & S/PDIF signals, you may use it with a 3.5mm monaural jack (PC) to RCA (Receiver coax digital)


Now, a few notes about this device:


- There are a few different model models of this unit at different price points. Get one with a TOSLink.

- TOSLink does not support DTS HD-Master or Dolby True-HD, because it is limited by S/PDIF standards and specs.

- SB X-fi devices are not always "loved" by reviewers. By now, this product is on the way out, and reviews consist mostly ill-informed and ill-advised product-bashing troll rants. Many of these people expected to get a software-free, fully featured external DAC, which it isn't. The use of 3.5mm Jacks for part of the analog outputs and low price should have been dead giveaways, but some folks never get the whole picture prior to getting all fussed-up. The DAC requires software to be installed to fully exploit, but you only need very basic drivers, even on very old WinXP systems to get the TOSLink to work.

- As a ways of adding a good working TOSLink output on anything from an old Pentium 3 box, to Netbook and better, this thing works very well, and is inexpensive.

- Because the TOSLink bitstreams everything to your receiver/amplifier's DAC, you don't need to fret about the device's SoundBlaster software, you won't need it. It bridges a technology and/or connectivity gap, and it does it's job very well. I'll assume you know how to manually install a driver without installing the whole software suite.