I have a music setup in my garage, I call it The Grateful Dead Jukebox. It’s a 1TB external hard drive loaded with decades of Dead music plugged into an old, crappy laptop. Then I have an ancient amplifier plugged into the speaker jack, and big ol’ box speakers plugged into that. It’s really loud (Wall of Sound anyone?).
The speaker jack in the laptop is junk, the plug will only work wedged in. It already ate one connector, and is soon to eat the new one.
Whats the best way for me to fix this on the cheap? I only use the computer to play the music on windows media player. I do not connect to the internet or do anything else on it.
Long shot since the equipment is old, but if both the laptop and your sound system support Bluetooth you can connect them wirelessly.
You know that almost all Dead shows are available on archive.org, right? You could just use a cellphone streaming from archive instead of your computer/hard drive system.
Bluetooth is not an option with the amp I have. And thanks for the tip, the hard drive is loaded from the archive.
I have used my cell phone on the system, but it’s not the same. And my phone is a huge PITA, doesn’t hold a charge well and streaming eats up my data. I’d really like the keep the jukebox the same if I can.
I find it a pain to try to work on laptops. I would probably go with a USB sound card if you have a free USB port. I don’t have a specific one to recommend, but it is much much easier than opening up a laptop and trying to access the motherboard.
ETA: there’s a Creative Labs Soundblaster on Amazon for $20.