What would I need to do this?

[Supermercado]

I've got my laptop and I've got my stereo. It's a pretty standard bookshelf system, with the center unit and two speakers. I have no real way to sit in my living room and listening to music from my laptop outside of the laptop speakers and headphones, neither of which is a great solution. What I'd like to do is connect my laptop to the stereo via the auxiliary in to listen to music. I can connect it okay, but it's not very loud and I have to turn the volume way up to make it audible and by that point, there's static and other noise and it sucks. I remember hooking my desktop up this same way a few years ago and it worked okay, I think, but the laptop isn't.

Is the sound quality and volume bad because there's no amp anywhere or something? I don't really know much about this stuff. Do I need to get a receiver and run the sound through that before it goes to the stereo?

If it's possible (and not cost prohibitive), I'd really like to find a way to do this wirelessly. I don't need another wire running from my laptop if I can avoid it. I don't know if there's any good products that I could plug into my laptop (with a minimal amount of wires and whatnot, since it would have to sit in my lap) and the other end in the stereo or receiver.

That's probably a really longwinded way of asking what I want to ask. Is what I want to do possible? Thanks.