Hey lads and ladies,

I want to steer away from extra costs of spending money on a HU and wiring my laptop up to my amp. How would i go about doing this and will it affect audio much, if so in what ways.

Many thanks in advance, Jess

the cheapest and easiest way is a 3.5mm to 2 rca adaptor.
a 2 meter version is $4.

some say the quality isnt good but i havent had any problems with mine. i dont really notice much difference between laptop and cd in the headunit

do you run from lineout or headphone out... just had a squiz at lappy... no lineout.
Do you run a high quality set up?

the quality of the sound will depend on the speakers and amps....if you are running jaycar splits and amps then it will prob sound the same as a cd

if your running a 5k amp, and 4k speakersin fully setup doors, then you will hear quite alot of imperfections

im running some rockford fosgate 6.5" splits in professionally sound deadned doors
alpine 4 channel amp not sure on the model
clarion head deck
and 2x 12" P2 rockford fosgate subs
there is a slight noticable difference in the subs punch when running the laptop but to me for long drives where i like a vriety of music i use the laptop. if i wanna show off my system i'll use a cd.


so the laptop has the microphone in port but not the headphone out port
if this is the case then either a docking station can be used-
The reason i mentioned this is becaue u can have all the cables like sound out,charger and usb cables attached and only have to attach the docking station cable when u put the laptop in the car. Makes it much easier if u use your laptop for other things like work etc.

or a pcmia {laptop card} sound card will have to be used

It has a headphone out port ... The quality difference you may be missing out on may perhaps be the quality of ripping you chose, not cd. Hope thats the case anyway, because most of the time ide be running cd's or cd's ripped at full quality.

How do i go about outputting the sound into the amp.
Wouldn't i get noise plugging it into the amps low level inputs for sub. You would have to split the rca conversion output wouldnt you?

Many thanks.

Jess

if your concerned about the quality of the sound you can by a external sound card that plugs in to a usb port the have em on auspcmarket they have rca outputs some even come with remotes.

Does anyone know if you can use a USB headunit and attach the laptop through the USB?

Are there any H/U out there that have a SPDIF input in them???

I am also looking at using a Laptop as a carputer as my Wife wants a Mac and we just bought a new LG laptop...

you could use a Alpine PXA-H701 processor hooked up to the S/PDIF.

The Behringer UB-202 is a good USB "sound card" with RCA analog and optical digital outputs.
has RCA input also.

I wouldn't use the internal one - most likely yuck.

i have my old acer laptop hooked up to the line in on my headunit. the laptop has a audio control on the front allowing me to change track without opening the laptop (i have it wedged down the side of the seat while im driving). the laptop is connected to a power inverter so i dont worry about the computers battery (just the car..)

also, soundblaster maker the "Audigy" PCMCIA card, which is analogue/digital and 5.1. although more expensive then the behringer?

The behringer goes for around $50-$70 doesn't it? The PCMCIA soundblaster audigy (aka PC card aka Cardbus) goes for around $200 i believe? You can also get an external USB sound "card" such as the Soundblaster Audigy 2NX. These also go for around the $200 mark. if you want one go to www.gamedude.com.au - cheapest price i could find in Aust. for one new.

Edit: you'd still want a processor of some sort though to work with this. Eg. my configuration is usb connection to Audigy 2NX external sound card --> optical out --> alpine processor --> rca's to amps.

yeh I just have to add that lineout quality from a stock laptop is nowhere near as good as a source unit. This is simply because source units are working with cds which are generally much higher than mp3 + laptop audio out is from the motherboard which isn't too flash unless you have a alienware laptop So the pcima card is a nice op. USB2 is also excellent. If your laptop has usb1 then go with the card cos usb1 is painful.

Another thing I want to add is a story. I had a friend who loved the laptop as a carputer idea. He used the laptop in the car for tunes/vid and at school for school work. He would put it on the passenger seat usually and one day someone crashed into his tail at a stopsign... The laptop flew out the windscreen and my friend had some glass lodge into his left forearm. So definately secure the laptop in some form. A good way to do this is have all the wires going into a dock connector and slotting your laptop into the dock when using it in the car, and removing it when needed elsewhere. Hope it goes well

hey is it possible to wire a laptop/mp3 player to an amp without a headunit. i guess headphone out can be connected to rca but theres no remote wiring like headunit.

sorry i dont mean to high jack the tread but im just wondering do u plug the rca to 3.5mm head phone jack into the amp or into the input on the headunit?

you can connect the 'remote' lead to the accessories part of the ignition (the wire which would normally power a headunit.. ) so when the car is on, the amps are on.. put a switch on the line to let u turn them off when u need too. or u could get a computer nerd to hack the power line out of a usb port so its powerd from the pc.. but that bits beyond me (but i know it is possible)



--edit---

just saw the date on this thread... ahwell, im sure it will still help sumone