Pensees: Does Anybody have a techinical opinion?

I don’t have any expertise here, Bob, but I am curious what coffee shop you’re in!

Meg’s Daily Grind

They don’t always play CCM, but you’ll hear it from time to time.

I am wondering why you are in a public coffee shop listening to music on your external laptop speakers?

A good set of headphones will help a lot.

Otherwise there is not solution to the Toshiba problem. I had two of them. I now have a Sony and it is better, but not great.

Joe, I am wearing headsets! Sheeesh! Just because you are suddenly over in lovely New Zealand doesn’t mean you have to get all judgmental of us poor lowly pastors who use Toshiba instead of Sony!

Besides even if I were to listen with my external laptop speakers I doubt it would bother anybody unless it disturbed them to see me with my head laying on the computer straining to hear…

I follow your newsletters closely. Read your message outline on Ruth, too. Good stuff. Keep up the good work, Brother.

(I have cheap headsets.)

I figured as much, but you never know! :-)

A better set of headphones will help. However, you will be limitted by the sound card in your Toshiba which is not as good as other laptops.

I am not sure you can upgrade a laptop’s sound card and even if you could it would probably cast about as much as a new laptop.

So either go w/ a good set of headphones - OR -

get an iPod! They rock!

Thanks for keep tabs on me and for reading my blog. I intend to start back to regular posts of substance soon for the three people left who are still reading it. :-)

Bob,

I can’t believe you have the audacity to be listening to MUSIC in a COFFEE SHOP!!!

(Sorry, I feel I have to be contrary when I come on here, now… :D )

I have a pair of noise cancelling headphones my wife bought me at Wal-Mart. They seem to help improve things quite a bit…

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=3661252

Also, I’ve never tried one, but I have seen USB sound cards advertised in the TigerDirect catalog…

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/search.asp?keywords=usb+sound+cards&image1.x=0&image1.y=0

Bob,

I have never gotten very good sound out of the external speakers of any laptops I have had over the years (Toshiba, Compaq, VPR Matrix, and now Gateway). The external speakers on my Compaq were better than the other three, however.

As far as with headphones, however, I have enjoyed the Gateway a lot. I also have started to connect some external speakers from a Dell Desktop to the Gateway through the headphone jack and listen to stuff while doing work in the office and have found that this works pretty well.

Just my thoughts on the question,

Frank Sansone

Laptop speakers seem to have a reputation for deficient audio. It seems that they are built to be just good enough for the sounds that folks put in their PowerPoint presentations (I think that I recall the term “business audio” in a review). My ThinkPad audio quality is marginally acceptable, but the volume is quite weak.

Laptop “sound card” are often deficient, also. Before you blame your sound card, though, make sure that your headset is up to your standards. If you have not already done so, try the headset with a source that you know produces good sound. If the headset produces poor audio quality when driven by such a good source, then a better headset may help.

If, however, the headset produces good quality from a good source, then your laptop sound card is probably a problem (likely either low-quality converters or inadequate shielding that lets digital noise inside your laptop into the audio circuitry). You can bypass the internal circuitry with an external “sound card” that plugs into a USB port or other interface. Creative Labs and others make consumer-level devices, but I am not familiar with any of them. (I have heard good things about Apogee’s Mini-DAC pro-audio unit, but $1000 is a bit much for this purpose. :))

Seriously, though, before I spent money on any external card, I would also consider an inexpensive MP3 player. Depending on your overall requirements, you may find it a better option.

Brent

Pastor, you seem to be forgetting a crucial point. Your Toshiba shares at least one characteristic with the best of the Compaqs, Sonys, Macs, Dells, and Gateways. That is, your Toshiba is a computer. Inasmuch as it is a computer, your Toshiba is automatically disadvantaged in this scenario. For we all know what happens when you walk into a certain radius of any computer. And you do spend a great deal of time with this particular Toshiba. I’d say that any computer of your’n has probably earned beaucoup kudos, regardless of its speaker quality or earphone jack track record. =}

In all seriousness, I would echo Brent’s comments. You’re not alone—laptops are notorious for their poor enunciation. And an MP3-player might be a swell choice. You didn’t perchance leap upon that free iPod bandwagon while it lasted? I’ve found that, plugged into my laptop’s earphone jack, even the earphones from my free iPod work better than any headsets I’ve tried.

I’ve followed the comments here with passionate disinterest. Now you have my attention. Free ipod?

Hmm. I’ll have to check it out.

Joy, you’re absolutely right about me and computers. So I’m relieved to hear that the sound issue is a universal problem.

Scott, the Daily Grind is basically our church office. We have our leadership meeting there regularly, even some committee meetings.

All, thanks for the input. I’m really bummed that I didn’t pursue the free ipod. But (I blush to reveal my ignorance) what is the difference between an ipod and an MP3 player? Is there a difference?

I just can’t bring myself to drop $300. for an ipod although this offer is attractive if I could afford it. Otherwise, why can’t I just get a cheaper MP3?

Fire away. . .

An ipod is an mp3 player (because it can play mp3 digital files), but all mp3 players are not ipods. Some ipods offer great user interfaces that allow you to store and categorize the files according to artist, album, topic, playlist, etc. It’s pretty useful. Plus, if you are in a habit of listening to any pastors regularly, you can subscribe to podcasts and load them onto your ipod as well (although you don’t need an ipod to jump on the podcast bandwagon).

I was tempted by the GBI ipod, and I left numerous hints for my wife, but I still don’t have it. Maybe for Christmas. :-)

Bob,

You can pick up an mp-3 player that will hold a couple hundred songs for less than a hundred dollars (Best Buy). I got a “creative zen” at Brookstone for $200. It can hold a couple thousand songs and a all kinds of messages. Of course, I do not know if hick towns like Rockford have Brookstones. You may have to travel to a more civilized city like Atlanta or Tampa.

Andrew Henderson

Bob,

I just helped one of our new college students track this deal down:

SanDisk Sansa M230 512 MB MP3 Player- $39.99 at Amazon

They also have a 1 GB version for $57.99. Amazon offers free shipping, too.

I have not owned an iPod, but I have found a older MP3 player similar to this to be a great tool to have. I use it to listen to messages as well as music. You can also use it like a flash drive to transport files between computers. I bought one of those adapters for my minivan’s cassette player so I can listen to it while I am driving, too.

I have a Creative Zen Nano Plus 1 GB mp3 player which cost $75 at WalMart (also available on Amazon.com). It can hold an enormous collection of music and sermons—actually, I have yet to completely fill it. Brent has the SanDisk Sansa 1 GB mp3 player and likes its performance, although we think that my Creative Zen is actually a little easier to manipulate for sermons. Either of these will play music much more nicely than your laptop, with the added benefit of portability. Oh, by the way, my mp3 player also doubles as a flash memory drive to transfer files between computers.

I’m not sure about the distinction between an ipod and an mp3, except to say that I have never seriously considered the ipod, since the mp3 has been sufficient for my wants and is much less expensive.

Pastor, about those meetings at Meg’s… Anne-Marie and I saw one advertised in the church bulletin FS something or other (bunch of initials) meeting. We decided we didn’t think we were in that group, whatever it was, but we’d just show up if it was at Meg’s. :-)

i hate to say it, but i referred to the free ipod offer in past tense on purpose. i still have the links up (because my access to my sidebar links has changed and i’ve not had time to figure out what i’m supposed to be doing different to fix them), but they’re essentially ripping people off now. i got a free one, as did kurt, a few of my other friends, and two of my three brothers. but the third brother got gypped, and he finally bought himself a nano. i don’t recommend the free ipod (free anything) offers all that enthusiastically these days, in spite of the linkage i have (plural) and the good experience i had (singular). if i’d had to buy it, i wouldn’t have dropped the $300 either.