Help on loop back cable?

Thread Starter

DIYSteve

Joined Oct 27, 2011
28
I've been using the free oscilloscope program Visual Analyzer (VA). Available here:

http://www.sillanumsoft.org/prod01.htm

I used to be able to play a video and analyze the audio track with the VA. This was helpful as a tachometer for motor experiments. That was with my old laptop.

I have a new laptop, now and I cannot find a way to connect the audio out via settings to the program's input.

Instead it always comes up using the laptop's microphone input as a signal source.

Accidentally the other day, I realized that if I cranked the sound level up through the laptop's internal speaker (instead of a headphone), the internal microphone would pick it up and display it on the VA.

This is pretty crude, but it works.

I would like to connect the microphone input to the headphone output to do the same thing electrically. But I'm afraid of overdriving/impedance mismatching somehow letting the magic smoke out of the laptop.

So I thought I'd ask first for advice here first.

Also not sure if typical mic jack is stereo or mono on a modern laptop, if and when I do make up a cable.

Thank you for your help.
 
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