DT 990 Problems

95tillinfinity · December 20, 2022

I just got my DT 990s and also bought the Schiit Magni3+B and also bought RCA cables to connect them all together. The amplifier is on and the headphones are connected but Im not hearing any audio and the headphones dont even show up connected on my PC and then I tried to just plug the 990s into my macbook with the headphone jack but even then no audio comes through, do I need to buy a RCA-USB cable to allow these to work? not sure what to do.

Psittac · December 20, 2022

Typically you would have a dac in the equation as well. You need to get from a digital information signal to an analog audio signal and that's what a DAC does, digital to analog conversion. This doesn't mean that you have to buy more equipment it just means that you need something to do the conversion for you. Typically the headphone jack will do this for you but it is not best practice to use an amplified source to feed an amplifier. It would be best practice to use a line level source which a desktop would provide. The problem though is that dac's aren't typically budget oriented with the cheapest I've seen being the $100 price tag with the likes of the Schiit Modi or other brands. This is what I would recommend for the long term but it would be nice to have a short to medium term solution.

First of all you need to figure out why your headphone jack isn't producing any audio at all, even with the headphones plugged directly into your laptop. This is likely a software configuration issue. If you know this already or have done this then skip ahead.

But first right click the speaker icon next to the clock in the lower right hand corner. I am on Win11 but Win10 should be very similar. Click on the sound setting's to open up the next window

This next window you want to ensure that your onboard audio is selected, perhaps give us a screen shot of this screen so we can double check your setting's. Also ensure that the volume bar is up (never turn this volume bar all the way up when hooked to your amplifier) But it should say something like realtek or speakers or headphones or something similar.

If you without a doubt have the headphone jack selected and are producing no audio through the headphone jack then you may have a hardware issue. However I would use the old audio control panel for a little more fine adjustment.

Press win + R for the run command then type in control panel

and press ok to open this window

and click on hardware and sound

Then click on sound to get this window

Give us a screen shot of this end window and the earlier system sound window

Let me ask some follow up questions. How exactly do you have the amplifier connected to the laptop? Either a picture of the product or a link.

Does your laptop produce sound in any capacity now? Even through the built in speakers?

What model is your laptop? Perhaps it has some built in software that is getting in the way.

95tillinfinity · January 3, 2023

Hey man, sorry didn't get to see this until just now.

I just did this and it finally worked, thank you so much brotha. Nothing else I found helped me as much as your comment did.

By the way, I have a PC not a laptop, just had tried it on my macbook and it did not work. My PC specs are a 3070, i7, NZXT Z490, kraken, etc. I have a regular computer but it did not work at first.

Anyways, thank you man

Psittac · January 3, 2023

5 hours ago, 95tillinfinity said:

Hey man, sorry didn't get to see this until just now.

I just did this and it finally worked, thank you so much brotha. Nothing else I found helped me as much as your comment did.

By the way, I have a PC not a laptop, just had tried it on my macbook and it did not work. My PC specs are a 3070, i7, NZXT Z490, kraken, etc. I have a regular computer but it did not work at first.

Anyways, thank you man

Awesome! Congrats on the fix!