On tuesday I leave for Bucharest to speak at NetCamp. I like speaking at events like these, so I look forward to that, but I’ll also try to attend as much as possible of the rest of the conference. Including extremely interesting people like Hugh MacLeod of Gapingvoid and Rodrigo Sepulveda Schulz of vpod.tv
Depending on connectivity and available time I’ll try to post some updates during my trip.
And now. The gadget. An addition to the rest of the essential equipment for your presentations. The unbalanced stereo audio output on any laptop always provide you with a bit of noise. Enough to make it really annoying in big theatres with huge sound systems. You don’t want that noise in the speakers when presenting and unless the audio system at the venue filters it out it will be there as long as your laptop is connected.
This noise won’t go away if you turn down the volume or mute the laptop. As long as that unbalanced minijack is connected you’ll have the noise.
Now connect a small and very cheap external volume control. And you can pump up the volume to the max from your laptop and turn it down again on that external volume knob. Unless you need insane amount of volume you’ll be able to supress some of the noise with this method. The one in the image is from my favourite store in Oslo. Clas Ohlson. Geek store numero uno.
eirikso 
I have good experience with the small USB sound adapter from Clas Ohlson. Much less noise than with the internal laptop sound board. It’s only about NOK 200. And it runs fine on Linux!
Very good advice. And I should have mentioned that kind of solution as well. An external USB audio card with better quality than the internal one. I thought they where more expensive. I have to check out that one the next time I visit the geek store…
I can recommend an external USB audio device as well. They come as advanced as you want them, from the 200 NOK ones you get at Clas Ohlson to 10.000 NOK solutions from MOTU and the likes. If you have a Mac, you most probably have a firewire port and you can get even better audio equipment (less latency, higher bandwidth, more expensive solutions), for up to 20.000 NOK from Digidesign.
Can someone tell more about how you use a external sound-card for a laptop. Links to product etc would be nice! How it look’s – WAF etc is also important.
Thanx!
Seems like this one has got some good reviews:
http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=25&l2=147&l3=0&l4=0&model=1913&modelmenu=1
But as far as I can see it’s Windows only.
Here’s something that’s supposed to work on more platforms:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0001I2F04/qid=1109462321/sr=8-1/ref=sr%3Cem%3E8%3C/em%3Exs%3Cem%3Eap%3C/em%3Ei1_xgl23/?v=glance
And this one is full of more or less useless audio processing, but according to the tests it’s a very decent audio adapter as well:
http://no.europe.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=209&subcategory=668&product=15913
And another one that is supposed to support both Win and Mac:
http://www.steelseries.com/int/products/audio/siberia-soundcard/information
thank you for info 😉
You get a guarantee for cross-platform interoperability if the sound card supports the USB Audio Class Interface, which is defined in the USB standard. It’s fairly simple and doesn’t support surround sound (afaik), EAX-like stuff, effects, etc., but it is often more than enough for decent laptop sound.
Tecnical question!
Does these have effect when for example connecting a laptop to a reciver? When playing movies on a lcd/plasma? I have SPDIF or whatever it’s called on my laptop. How do I get the most out of the laptop when using reciver for either music or video?
I have a coax and digital in-/output on the reciver!
By the way! The screencard on the laptop is 1900*400 (at lest 1900 times something). What out put can it deliver for a lcd/plasma? HD-ready, Full HD?
I’m dreaming of a lcd-christmas and have been a thorougly nice boy this year, if I skip some black moments arguments, but who doesent! It takes two to tango right?!
And for that ReCaptcha thing going on: I live close to MLR (Airport in Rygge, Norway), that ReCaptcha tells me to type: “Sterling Daly”. Next would probably be “Norwegian, out” aRGHHH!
Eirik, your device (amplifier) to manage video signal saved my presentation. Link to that ?
It has saved me two times. Including this. And I do hundreds of presentations. So usually my MacBook behave well. Still it is worth those two times alone. And now it has saved a fellow presenter as well! It’s possible to manage without audio, but with no image it’s pretty hard to do a presentation. 🙂
I guess a link to a Norwegian web shop selling it would be of no use for you, but over here:
https://eirikso.com/2007/10/15/essential-equipment-for-your-presentation/
You’ll find an image, brand name and a detailed description of what it is called. I guess that’s all you need to find it in a shop near you. Please let me know if you have problems finding it.
Kubrick theme???????? hahahahaha
Hi Eirik,
I was yesterday at the conference and I really enjoyed your presentation (also Rodrigo’s and Hugh’s presentations). I showed my 14 year old daughter your blog and the norvegian seasons video and she was delighted. Thank you for coming to Bucharest, good luck with your projects.
PS. Sorry I’ve posted here, but I saw no other link related to the conference .
Nice meeting you, great presentation, very good analogies.
Good luck!
Eirik,
It was great meeting you at Netcamp and chatting around those two nice dinners.
And frankly your VGA amplifier saved my presentation! I’m gonna get one of those!
Hope to see you soon, maybe at LeWeb3.
I think it was the best presentation at the event. funny and serious ! good luck!
Thank you for all the nice words! And it’s no problem that you post comments about netcamp on this article. I am working on an article with some thoughts, images and my presentation from the conference, but at this point this is the only article about it here on eirikso.
I had a great time in Bucuresti. Unfortunately I’m not going to LeWeb3. My coworker Mr. Øyvind Solstad is covering that event. But maybe I’ll see some of you again anyway. Follow this blog, and you should know where I’m heading. And who knows. Maybe I’ll start using my Twitter account more often as well…?
[…] inside the computer. Together with all kinds of electronics that produce noise. After posting an article about a very cheap external volume control and audio switch I had some comments about replacing that one with an external USB based audio […]