Listening to stuff on a laptop

Hammeron · 2011-06-01T16:11:18+00:00

I downloaded and listened to something the other day on the laptop - not something I do often due to a very slow connection- and I thought it sounded thin an...

Listening to stuff on a laptop

shaundtsl

I generally always have earphones in my laptop bag.. or in my ears when I am working anyway.

Manfred-Klose

EDIT: zietsman beat me to it. the average person using their laptop for entertainment/watching movies/listening to music will at least have a pair of headphones.

DonovanB

Laptops will always have rubbish sound.

I do listen to my mixes on a laptop though to make sure the important bits come out. Melody, some resemblance of a beat etc. You won't get any decent bass and it will always sound horrid but if you can get the basic message across, enough for the listener to want to hear it again on a decent system you've done well.

Manfred-Klose

the best investment i ever made was to spend R10 on JVC headphones, when i was in hospital due to a motorcycle accident.......anyway, i've been using them for 8 years now, and they are very accurate reference headphones, even for bass.

Bob-Dubery

Any system is only as good as it's components. I have a laptop machine that I think has an OK (not great, just OK) sound card in it. I like to listen to music sometimes at work and I do so with those little in-ear headphone things. For two reasons
1) not wanting to impose my choice of music on in my colleagues in the office (they reciprocate, it's a little unwritten law).
2) because the built in speakers are tiny and tinny - the earphones sound way better.

I also apply some EQ via the player software (Winamp or Windows Media player both provide this facility).

Earphones ain't earphones either. I've got Griffin Earthumps at work. I think you can probably do a lot better, but I'm not that fussed about sound being ultimately hi-fidelic so, for me, the Earthumps do the job. I used to have a pair of... something else, can't remember. The Griffins were a step up to an acceptable (for me) quality.

I'd think the built in speakers are the most likely culprit.

I don't believe that people who are publishing music can lose too much sleep over the question of who is listening on what gear. You do your best to get it sounding acceptable and then let the masses have their way with it. I think most people these days have ridiculous amounts of bass, and wooly, muffled bass at that. But if I were a record producer I wouldn't lie awake at night worrying about that. Besides, the radio stations are going to compress the bejabers out of it anyway.

If I weren't sharing an office I might shut the doors and put the output from my lap top's sound card into a ghetto blaster or (as a friend of mine has done) a pair of studio monitors with a built in amp.

At home I have a Creative Labs sound system (not great, Ok, good enough for me, yada yada) but I often use a pair of headphones (I bought whatever they had at Game - they were about R250) because I tend to get up early in the morning when Mrs X-rated is still sleeping.

You can probably substantially improve the sound quality for music played on your laptop for not that much money.

FenderBender

Hammeron wrote: How many of you have your PC's or laptops connected to decent speakers or your Hi Fi's?

I use my laptop in a variety of situations and use either active portable speakers with the internal sound card, as is (with the crappy internal speakers), headphones or via my external sound card into my high end hi-fi. It depends on content and how lazy I am to get up and plug in ?

Ray

I plug a pair of studio monitors in at home because I'm not comfortable with headphones on most of the time. I have sennheiser headphones which I use occasionally at work or wherever if I just want to listen to somnething quick - also got some other lkittle in the ear things but I find it uncomfortable. I dont have any serious sound card on my laptop - like Bob what I have does what I need. But some drol told you that you dont deserve decent sound so you dont have to go and spend any money ne.

Hammeron

Great.
I think you lads have answered my question, and that is:
People that are into music to whatever degree will have the common sense to use some sort of application that allows them to hear things on a decent level, beginning with headphones onwards. Ta! ?

DonRoos

Most of us also have an iPod of MP3 player that we copy the music onto with a decent set of earphones. Music can also be put onto a CD to listen on a sound system or in car - my favoutite place to listen.

As far a laptops sound is concerned,there are sound cards and sound cards; speakers and speakers. Some laptops come with JBL sound these days and some of the Boss speaker systems will put many HiFi systems to shame. If you like music, you will spend money on hearing it properly.

I would not loose any sleep on this.

Highway-Chile

You can download the files and play them in your DAW as well, through your studio monitors. You are never limited to your laptop speakers.....headphones too as many mentioned. My Sony MDR-7506 and Sony V6 cans sound great. The MacBook Pro also has an optical out so you get great digital sound capability.

I will say though, that listening to your mixes on crappy, basic laptop speakers and also a mono tower speaker if you have one, is cool because you can see how your mixes are translating. Some people are going to listen on their laptop, at work, sitting at a table at the sidewalk setup of the cyber coffee shop etc..........is your mix hot enough, is the separation good, is the low end just killing the tiny cones causing distortion? How about in mono? Is the entire mix nice and audible or is the spread too wide and some aspect of the mix is very muted due to phase cancellation issues? I think it is important to test your mixes on laptop speakers since so many people use them nowadays.

I have all sorts of monitoring but I recently got one of these as a solution. It makes a dramatic difference.

http://www.amazon.com/Macally-TUNEFAN-Speakers-Subwoofer-Cooling/dp/tech-data/B002PAQY76/ref=de_a_smtd

What is nice is the cooling fan, something I really need with my MacBook Pro C2D. It get's hot!!!!

The sound quality is not awesome but is definitely MUCH better. At first I was like.....yeuch!! but I have got used to it now and find it perfectly fine, nice in fact.......even going between it and my studio monitors which are very nice. I find it better than any consumer grade 2.1 speaker system I have tried in the same or similar price range. I have a couple Altec Lansing and also the Creative Labs offerings, two of those.....it kicks ass over them. My buddy has a stereo Harmon Kardon Soundstick deal (no sub) and to my ear it sounds way better than that. I'm happy.

It is loud enough that, with a typical current release that has been mastered loud, it is uncomfortable to listen at full volume when working on the laptop. Sometimes if I am doing something on the other side of the den or in the kitchen and my laptop is elsewhere, I will turn it up full.......doing housework and such. Stays pretty clean when dime'd also.

What is nice also is that I can route Pro Tools into it. Currently I am studying an online Pro Tools video tutorial to sharpen my skills. I can route the audio from the downloaded videos to the MacAlly and also my opened Pro Tools sessions with the audio examples and demo's running and bounce back and forth easily as I perform the tasks.

DaFiz

Cool braai trick... plug laptop into RCA inputs on bass amp... ?arty:

StephenG

DaFiz wrote: Cool braai trick... plug laptop into RCA inputs on bass amp... ?arty:

its even more cool if its your neighbours braai'ing !!!!!

some years ago my neighbours are braai'ing and just playing the most annoying music on their hifi - I cant say what type of music it was, as this would offend people no doubt... anyway - went and got my PA system with the large speakers and all - set it up outside, aimed at their house and used my CD player to play Beasties Boys at full volume through the PA until they turned their crap off... 8)

AlanRatcliffe

He, He. Some years ago (wavy lines to signify moving into the past...), I shared a second-story flat on Wynberg main road with a few other musos. After getting our first drum kit in the flat, we ended up in a volume war with the car audio installation place below us. Problem being, our wooden floor was their wooden ceiling.

Things escalated rapidly (as wars are wont to) and the penultimate salvo came from them - they closed up for a weekend, leaving all their radios tuned to some arbitrary radio station and turned up all the way. We lost that battle, but won the next one after I borrowed an 18" downward firing sub and a Crown Macrotech 5000 from work and treated them to Iron Maiden's Powerslave all one day.

At end of business, I grabbed a bottle of whiskey, went downstairs and proposed a truce. The owner (Jimmy) and I got a bit pie-eyed and talked amp specs half the night. Never had a problem after that - we kept it down during the day and they did the same at night. ?

BMU

HAHAHA that's an awesome story. Powerslave no less.