Poor sound quality from my laptops vs. perfect from iPhone

[DainBramaged]

Okay, I have 320 VBR songs on my laptops and 256 on my iPhone. Yet somehow, the iPhone delivers such a full, nuanced, full sound in comparison. Even if it's just streaming Amazon Prime. What am I doing wrong? What can I do to fix this?

Edit: I should note that I'm porting them both to the same external speaker.

 

[JAG87]

Does the same problem occur on the laptop if you use headphones?

 

[DainBramaged]

Does the same problem occur on the laptop if you use headphones?

I'm 90% sure that yes, but it's harder to tell on my headphones. I suspect so, but I'm afraid I'm just being biased because I already suspect this to be the case.

 

[JeffMD]

Laptops use onboard audio solutions, using a USB sound card solution might yield better quality.

Is the speaker wired? Just incase you are trying to use non-aptx bluetooth on that crap. -_-

 

[SithSolo1]

JeffMD is probably correct, you may want to try one of these if you are connecting to the speaker via a cable:

http://www.amazon.com/Behringer-UCA202-Audio-Interface/dp/B000KW2YEI

If you are using bluetooth it could be that the Iphone supports a newer standard than the laptop.

 

[DainBramaged]

Yeah, I'm using a wired connection. I guess I'll look into the USB solutions. Thanks folks!

 

[DainBramaged]

As an update, I bought the UCA 202. There is a HUGE tangible difference in quality. I can blast it as loud as the speaker will allow without ANY loss of quality. If I switch back to onboard sound, the drop in quality becomes quite apparent. Good to know I wasn't just hearing things...haha. Thanks, folks!

 

[thesmokingman]

Yeah, I'm using a wired connection. I guess I'll look into the USB solutions. Thanks folks!

Get a fiio portable dac/amp, that way you can use with anything.