This is one of my personal goals, to ensure no one does it that way (grin).

Dave is correct; the headphone jack is not a line-level signal. The gain can be close if you turn up the laptop maybe two-thirds (varies, of course). The impedance will still be wrong and degrade the sound.

What I really hate, in addition to poor quality sound, is the horrible static-like blast you will hear when the headphone connection isn’t perfect, especially when it is jostled. This can clear a room worse than feedback. And those mini headphone jacks will fail, just by their design.

A much better solution is to get an audio interface that connects to your laptop USB port. You can find these with a gain knob and RCA output jacks.


BIAB 2024 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 6.5 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6; Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus Studio 192, Presonus Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors