Volume issues when hooking laptop up to my stereo speakers

defenstration

I got a cable that connects from the headphone socket on my laptop to the red and white (or maybe it's red and yellow) AUX connections on my stereo.
This allows me to play music on my laptop through my stereo speakers, by selecting AUX on my stereo.
Only problem is that in order to be able to hear the music, the volume on my stereo needs to be up to the very last, even with the volume on the laptop up to the last.
So if someone accidentally presses a button on the stereo to switch from AUX to the cd tray and the cd starts playin, it will deafen everyone within a half a mile radius!

Is there any way of sorting this out so that the stereo volume needs only to be set close to its regular volume when connected to the laptop? Would I need to change something on the laptop? Or is there some AUX setting on the stereo? Or do I just need a separate amplifier?

Cheers.

Overheal

I'm assuming you have the volume on the laptop fully up, and that we are dealing with a particularly long stereo cord. The further the electric signal has to travel the weaker it gets. you can negate a lot of this by using a high-quality purified copper or gold plated cable, or you can purchase a seperate amplifier unit to sit between the stereo and the laptop connections.

Unregistered.

defenstration wrote: »

I got a cable that connects from the headphone socket on my laptop to the red and white (or maybe it's red and yellow) AUX connections on my stereo.
This allows me to play music on my laptop through my stereo speakers, by selecting AUX on my stereo.
Only problem is that in order to be able to hear the music, the volume on my stereo needs to be up to the very last, even with the volume on the laptop up to the last.
So if someone accidentally presses a button on the stereo to switch from AUX to the cd tray and the cd starts playin, it will deafen everyone within a half a mile radius!

Is there any way of sorting this out so that the stereo volume needs only to be set close to its regular volume when connected to the laptop? Would I need to change something on the laptop? Or is there some AUX setting on the stereo? Or do I just need a separate amplifier?

Cheers.

Have you got "wave" on the advanced volume control turned up?? And while you're checking that, have a look at the "aux" setting too. :rolleyes:

defenstration

Unregistered. wrote: »

Have you got "wave" on the advanced volume control turned up?? And while you're checking that, have a look at the "aux" setting too. :rolleyes:

Excuse my airheadedness, but how do you do that on Vista? Might have been able to do that on XP but still tryin to get my head around Vista. 'Sounds' in Control Panel doesn't seem to give me those options...

defenstration

Overheal wrote: »

I'm assuming you have the volume on the laptop fully up, and that we are dealing with a particularly long stereo cord. The further the electric signal has to travel the weaker it gets. you can negate a lot of this by using a high-quality purified copper or gold plated cable, or you can purchase a seperate amplifier unit to sit between the stereo and the laptop connections.

Well the basic volume on the laptop is fully up. As regards changing colume for AUX and wave, not sure what they're set at cos I dunno haw to find their settings in Vista.

The cable I'm using is about 1.5 metres long. Dunno what quality it is, just picked up the first one I came accross in the shop cos they were hard to find.

defenstration

One thing I forgot to mention is that the cable I have has a red connector, a white connector and a yellow connector. But my stereo only has a red socket and a white socket. The weird thing is though, all I need to do to get volume (albeit very very low volume) is plug either the white or the yellow connection on the cable into either of those connections on the stereo, nothing else!
I've tried all soortsa combinations between the 3 different coloured connections and the 2 different coloured sockets but the results are always the same - all I have to do to get it to work is to plug the white connection or the yellow connection into either of those sockets. Putting another other connection into the other socket won't make any difference.

Maybe this is the cause of the problem rather than my laptop settings?

Cheers again for the help

Overheal

you really should find a cable with just the 2 red and white connections.

Unregistered.

defenstration wrote: »

One thing I forgot to mention is that the cable I have has a red connector, a white connector and a yellow connector. But my stereo only has a red socket and a white socket. The weird thing is though, all I need to do to get volume (albeit very very low volume) is plug either the white or the yellow connection on the cable into either of those connections on the stereo, nothing else!
I've tried all soortsa combinations between the 3 different coloured connections and the 2 different coloured sockets but the results are always the same - all I have to do to get it to work is to plug the white connection or the yellow connection into either of those sockets. Putting another other connection into the other socket won't make any difference.

Maybe this is the cause of the problem rather than my laptop settings?

Cheers again for the help

The white goes into the white and the red goes into the red! The yellow one is for video, I have no idea why you bought that cable for just connecting your laptop to a stereo!
Is the output jack (Aux) 3.5mm??

defenstration wrote: »

Excuse my airheadedness, but how do you do that on Vista? Might have been able to do that on XP but still tryin to get my head around Vista. 'Sounds' in Control Panel doesn't seem to give me those options...

Sorry, I am used to and thinking it was XP! Try this:
Right click on your speaker icon in your system tray and select "Volume Mixer". The wave volume is called "windows sounds", should be able to adjust that there.

EDIT: I would like to drawa your attention to the Computer/Technology FAQ on how to write a detailed post.

In order to give you an accurate answer, we need all the information you can give us e.g. what make computer is it, what model, what operating system are you using, the name of the program running, etc.

- e.g. I have a Dell Optiplex GX280 running Windows XP Service Pack

Hope that helps,

U.

defenstration

Cheers, yeah checked the volume settings on the laptop and they seem fine.

Red into red and white into white is the first thing I tried, but that doesn't make a difference. Are you saying that if I buy a cable with only red and white connections, this will be solved? Surely the fact that my cable just has an extra connection would make no difference?

As regards it being 3.5mm or not, I presume it is - they all fit directly into the sockets on the stereo.

Unregistered.

defenstration wrote: »

Cheers, yeah checked the volume settings on the laptop and they seem fine.

Red into red and white into white is the first thing I tried, but that doesn't make a difference. Are you saying that if I buy a cable with only red and white connections, this will be solved? Surely the fact that my cable just has an extra connection would make no difference?

No, I'm not saying that, I would have thought it would make a difference at all, once the red and yellow are inserted correctly - But then again, I would have bout the 3.5mm to 2rca rather than 3! LOL
Do this:
Open advanced sound settings again -> press(on keyboard) "print screen"(or "Prnt Scrn") -> open Paint -> click paste(or press "Ctrl+V") -> resize if neccessary, so that the Volume control box can be seen -> save and upload to here so we can double-check.

defenstration wrote: »

As regards it being 3.5mm or not, I presume it is - they all fit directly into the sockets on the stereo.

3.5mm is the end that goes into the laptop, should look like the end of most headphones. Also, make sure it's plugged in to "aux out" and not "aux in" or similar....

Overheal

defenstration wrote: »

Cheers, yeah checked the volume settings on the laptop and they seem fine.

Red into red and white into white is the first thing I tried, but that doesn't make a difference. Are you saying that if I buy a cable with only red and white connections, this will be solved? Surely the fact that my cable just has an extra connection would make no difference?

As regards it being 3.5mm or not, I presume it is - they all fit directly into the sockets on the stereo.

Is it a particularly cheap cable? What length is it?

defenstration

as regards the advanced volume settings, I dont think it is a problem with the laptop any more cos I have the same problem when I connect the cable to my mp3 player instead of to the laptop. So the problem must be the cable or the stereo.

The cable is about 1.5m long. As regards it being cheap, I spent about 15 euro on it in some electrical store. I wouldn't know if its quality or not just to look at it - I dont know much about this kinda thing!

defenstration

another thing I've noticed is that if I leave the cable unplugged from the laptop and only plugged into the stereo, I turn the volume of the stereo up to the last (cos of the problem), then:
1) I can hear that the volume of the stereo speakers is turned up to the last - ya know the way that even shen no music is playing, the silence from the speakers is very loud when the volume is turned up high
2) then when I plug the cable into the laptop, there is some feedback or whatever you'd call it as the cable is getting plugged in and rubbing off the edges of the socket. That's pretty normal I would think, but the thing is that the feedback is pretty loud compared to the volume of the music.

So it seems that when I have my stereo on AUX, everything is loud except for the actual music! I would have thought then that the problem must be on the side of the laptop, but like I said, I have the very same problem if I connect my mp3 player up to the speakers, so surely the problem is not with the laptop AND the mp3 player? And so must be either the cable or the stereo?

I'm stumped! Cheers again lads

defenstration

as requested, attached is a screenshot of the volume mixer.

defenstration

After looking through it this morning, I think it could be down to a few small things. If I play a cd on foobar on my laptop (through the cable and stereo speakers), then the volume is pretty ok, just slightly less volume than if I played the cd directly off the stereo. So I think the main culprit for this loss of volume is probably the Reply Gain that I have set up on Foobar - it is only when I play the ripped music that the volume is a good bit lower.

The small loss of volume between playing a cd directly on the stereo vs playing it on the laptop, is probably down to the length of the cable? Even though it's less than 2m long...

As regards why the mp3 player is still very quiet when I play music from it through the stereo speakers, maybe the top volume of the mp3 player isnt very loud. Understandable really. Its the Sony Walkman brand, just some 1GB thing I got a few years back.

So there is still a loss of volume, but its probably down to a combination of the cable and (mostly) the Replay Gain on foobar. Its a price worth paying I suppose - Replay Gain quietens my albums from anything between -1 to -11 so its doing a good job.

Anyway, I'll leave yis alone, unless you think that there's any way I can improve the situation slightly? Maybe by a better quality cable? Any recommendations?
Cheers again lads.

Overheal

A specifically audio cable might work better. I dont know that I like the whole AV thing.

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=3.5+to+rca&oe=utf-8&cid=3595848870990503752&sa=title#ps-sellers

Seeing as its an analog signal, you probably cant go wrong by splashing out on Monster - but then again we're not sure how much of a problem the cable is: so spending that much might not do you too much improvement.

Matter of interest, how is headphone quality through your laptop?

defenstration

Cheers. Headphone quality seems grand, but now that you mention it, when I put the headphone volume up to the last and the laptop volume up to the last, I can still listen without getting the ears blown off me. Is that a bad thing or is it pretty standard that the headphone volume shouldn't allow your ears to be blown off?!
They're a fairly good pair of headphones too.

Overheal

with my headdies on full, i can expect to feel the onset of a mild headache.

thebman

TBH, it could be a damaged cable.

Or when ripping music, the volume controls might have been taken into account (some players actually do rip at the volume set on the player and I don't know why).

I'm not sure what the tech term for it but I ended up ripping a few CD's a second time because of reduced sound volume (and I know about quality settings for MP3's, enough to set them anyway).

I use Foobar 2000 on Vista so it isn't an issue with player/OS compatibility.

If it is just with your ripped music, try ripping it again using a different media player.