Sound-bar Sandstrom S42SWLH13 Low volume in certain situations

[luke lynch]

Hi,
I have a Sandstrom S42SWLH13 sound-bar which produces low maximum volume when connected through 3.5mm aux to a laptop or phone but not to a TV.
When connected to a TV it produces very high volume but when connected to a phone only about half volume and laptop produces somewhere in-between.
The same cable is used with each device and each device as well as the sound-bar is at max volume.
Any advice is welcome,
Luke.

 

[lucid]

This could be a simple case of the millivolts of power available.

The TV is always going to be plugged in to the mains, so there's no concern about how much power the headphone circuit consumes. Both the portable and the laptop are battery-driven devices, so there's going to be some restrictions on all the parts that consume power, and that includes the headphone drive circuits.

Designers of portables and other devices running off battery have to consider how much juice each part of the device consumes. On top of that, there's legislation in the UK and Europe to limit how much power (and hence volume) that a portable device can put out when driving 'phones.

Your Sandstrom requires 800~1200mV* at the jack socket to produce its maximum volume. I think I read somewhere that the limit for portables is around 300mV. The TV isn't going to be subject to the same sort of limits for a few reasons.

Try a headphone amp as a way to boost the voltage. Have a look on Ebay for something used.


* The power level is frequency dependent.