Computer Problems.

[mrlipring]

Anyone know of a laptop that features a decent hi fi connect?

What inputs does your hi-fi have? Ideally you'd want to go digital all the way to the hi-fi, so if it has coax or optical sp-dif input, you're laughing.

I wouldn't go for a laptop with either of these outputs built-in, however. It's uncommon so you'd be paying over the odds. Like Doorstop suggested, get a USB or firewire audio interface with sp-dif output, and route your music from the laptop through that. You'll be able to set a specific soundcard as the output in whatever software want to use to play the music.

Decent audio interfaces start at maybe 30 quid and go up to silly money.

Remember you don't have to spend much money at all on the laptop itself. I'd be tempted to get something really cheap, even second hand. If you then want to be particularly swish, get yourself an Android tablet to use as a big remote control to browse the music. Album art etc in the palm of your hand. The whole setup doesn't need to cost more than maybe 300 quid for laptop, tablet, audio interface.

[Dexter St. Clair]

There are three general methods of getting the music out of your computer and into your hi-fi:
Using media player software on your computer to play the music, and connecting the computer’s sound card directly to your hi-fi
Using a high quality external USB sound card that has a good digital to analogue converter (DAC) on board, and connecting this between the computer and the hi-fi
Using a dedicated stand-alone digital stream player (sometimes referred to as ‘media receiver’ or ‘digital media player’)

http://www.linnrecords.com/linn-how-to-play-downloads-through-your-hifi.aspx

Think beyond the box http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_media_receiver

Or an Iphone/ I Pad plus I tunes to control it from your bath chair.

You may wish to combine recording your Guitar and voice onto your computer as well playing your Flac files via this

M-Audio MobilePre USB Audio Interface

If you want we can borrow Felonious's laptop and dac convertor for a demonstration.

[Lone Groover]

Thanks all.
The linn link is terrifying. If you have to ask the price you can't afford it !!!!

Much to browse, thanks again.

[Lone Groover]

My amp/cd player/tuner has a USB port, can I just connect from laptop to that ?

Bloody hope so !
Also 2 digital in sockets, bur can't see what type

[mrlipring]

Nope, the USB socket will be for a USB hard drive or thumb drive type thing. You won't be able to connect a PC directly to it unfortunately.

Are the digital in optical or coax? Most sound cards/audio interfaces that have one will have the other, so you'll be fine using that.

[RDR]

Any views on the Kindle fire HD?
Thinking of getting one for my missus for Christmas.
Seems to have mixed reviews and I don't want to go as far an iPad but have heard that a Samsung Tablet is a good halfway house between the two.

[yoker brian]

Can't comment on the Kindle Fire, but I've had a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7" Wifi tablet for a couple of months, excellent battery life, good display, handles all the media types I've thrown at it. Downside is the 4GB on board storage, but there is a microSD slot, which is handy I've got a 32Gb card, plenty of space for movies, ebooks etc, sign up for dropbox to sync & share files between computers & tablet. Plenty of Apps available from Google Play store, and if you already have an android phone once you sign in all your contacts etc sync over & email set up too with minimal fuss/effort

Its got a front facing camera - handy for Skype video calls, decent sized on screen keyboard.

I pretty much use it as my main browsing /email /social media interface, now and only use the laptop for more in depth tasks. Although you can connect it to a PC/Laptop to transfer files, it doesn't charge from the USB socket

I paid £199 but there was a £30 cash back deal - this was around the time of the Kindle Fire being launched.

Another to consider is the Google Nexus - seen it advertised with Currys/PC World with 32Gb on board storage, for £199 but you get £20 cash back if you purchase a case with it.

I'd recommend the leather flip case (looks like a moleskine notbook) it folds over into a stand as well, as opposed to the soft slip case type

Avoid the BlackBerry play tablet - good deals but the range of Apps is poor IMHO and BlackBerry have stopped making them plus it's OS leaves a bit to be desired.

Hope you find this helpful if you want to know more drop me a PM.

[engineer]

Not a problem. looking for the word of experience before i commit to a new gadget.

I am going to buy a laptop to run with a huge exdternal memory to host all my music.

All the laptops I have looked at only have a mini headphone style output socket.

Anyone know of a laptop that features a decent hi fi connect?

Cheers.

I bought an apple airport express, about £70 i think. connects to your stereo with 3.5mm plug (optical output also) and streams the music from your computer. was a real pain in the tits to set up initially but does work really well.
downside is on a PC it'll only work with itunes, but you can buy a prog called airfoil which will have it output anything (spotify, youtube in yer browser etc) AND fortunately for me Ubuntu (and I assume most linux) will stream to it also.
in addition to the stereo hookup it does a whole lot more, wifi extending,printer sharing etc.
only apple product i can afford!

[yoker brian]

Any views on the Kindle fire HD?
Thinking of getting one for my missus for Christmas.
Seems to have mixed reviews and I don't want to go as far an iPad but have heard that a Samsung Tablet is a good halfway house between the two.

Gutted as it's the same tablet I bought 3 month's ago, but
Samsung Galaxy Tab 7″ available for £120 with Amazon UK promotion: The Samsung Galaxy Tab has been grea... http://t.co/qCYMChlC

[RDR]

Can't comment on the Kindle Fire, but I've had a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7" Wifi tablet for a couple of months, excellent battery life, good display, handles all the media types I've thrown at it. Downside is the 4GB on board storage, but there is a microSD slot, which is handy I've got a 32Gb card, plenty of space for movies, ebooks etc, sign up for dropbox to sync & share files between computers & tablet. Plenty of Apps available from Google Play store, and if you already have an android phone once you sign in all your contacts etc sync over & email set up too with minimal fuss/effort

Its got a front facing camera - handy for Skype video calls, decent sized on screen keyboard.

I pretty much use it as my main browsing /email /social media interface, now and only use the laptop for more in depth tasks. Although you can connect it to a PC/Laptop to transfer files, it doesn't charge from the USB socket

I paid £199 but there was a £30 cash back deal - this was around the time of the Kindle Fire being launched.

Another to consider is the Google Nexus - seen it advertised with Currys/PC World with 32Gb on board storage, for £199 but you get £20 cash back if you purchase a case with it.

I'd recommend the leather flip case (looks like a moleskine notbook) it folds over into a stand as well, as opposed to the soft slip case type

Avoid the BlackBerry play tablet - good deals but the range of Apps is poor IMHO and BlackBerry have stopped making them plus it's OS leaves a bit to be desired.

Hope you find this helpful if you want to know more drop me a PM.

Thanks YB, really helpful and pretty much settles my mind that I won't go for the Kindle Fire.

[HollowHorn]

More of an irritation than a problem, does anyone else get this when they close one site & attempt to open another:

Firefox is already running, but is not responding. To open a new window, you must first close the existing Firefox process, or restart your system.

After 30 secs or so I can open the new site, be nice to get rid of it though.

Fuck off in advance, Fossil.

[Doorstop]

Why not just open the second (or third) sites in tabs?

Ctrl-t and it opens a new window inside Firefox with the tabs at the top, allowing you to flick between sites without actually having to shut any of them down.

[HelenD]

I get this problem from time to time, closing Firefox and then realising there was something else I wanted to look at.

The window disappears but it's not gone from memory at this point. It can take a while for Firefox to close itself down, particularly if you have a slow system that's running a lot of other stuff at the time.

Tabs are where it's at. I remember the bad old days of IE when I'd have half a dozen separate windows open at any time. If you got used to computing at about that time, I can see how this might become ingrained.

[HelenD]

Blimey! This wee Android phone is something...

I've got it working as a WiFi router and my laptop is talking to the web server on my netbook.

[Doorstop]

Android ftw!