Muffled sound when hooking up macbook to receiver...

When I hookup my Kenwood receiver that's about 10 years old via the rear RCA AUX to the headphone jack on my MacBook Pro it is extremely muffled. I can hear the beat and the backup vocals, but everything else is muffled. However, when I unplug the cable from my computer and plug it into the headphone jack of my my phone it plays fine. Anyone know what's going on? This is really annoying, any help would be much appreciated!

Thanks!

In the sound settings in system preferences have you checked that the output volume is sufficiently high and that the balance setting is centred?

Yup, I've checked all of that

It's all about eliminating things then.

What's the sound like if you listen to your MB over headphones?

My macbook speakers sound fine and when plugging headphones into my macbook it sounds fine as well, the issue only seems to be when trying to connect the receiver to my macbook, it's really strange

In that case it sounds like it's the interface between your cable and your macbook. Can you get another 3.5mm to RCA cable and try that?

I didn't think that would be the issue, since the cable works just fine when I play music from my phone, but I'll get another RCA-3.5mm cable and let you know what happens

those cables, and the 3.5mm connection in particular, can be temperemantal.

I used to use one in an old car to play my ipod and it would work fine one day but not the next

Also check the 3.5 mm end of that plug. Does it contain one black band or two? if it has one band swap it out for one with two black bands. The single band ones are mono.

It actually has 3 black bands

I tried a new cable with 2 black rings for stereo and it didn't do any good at all. I've checked the settings on the MBP and I can't find anything that would hinder what I'm trying to do. Anymore suggestions would be appreciated.

a mystery!

just one more thing you could check on your mac:

in iTunes preferences, go to the playback tab and make sure the sound enhancer box is checked and the slider placed all the way to the right. any changes need a second or two to become apparent.

other than that, you could try plugging the RCA lead into a different input on your receiver and see what happens, or plug a different device into the aux socket.

an obvious question and something to check, are both your speakers wired properly (i.e. in phase)?

AUX-IN expects a much higher amplitude that you would use in your ear phones - this sounds like normal behaviour to me.

dbm said:

AUX-IN expects a much higher amplitude that you would use in your ear phones - this sounds like normal behaviour to me.

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I should have thought of that. It certainly could describe the sound the OP described. If that is what is happening then something like the iMic - Griffin Technology should help. Connect it to the laptop and connect the cable from there to the input on the stereo.