The reason the Wadia-transport exists is to be able to bypass the internal amplifier and digital to analog converter in the iPod. When you're playing from the hard drive of your laptop and sending the signal either from USB or from a digital output you don't have that problem. If you use an analog output from the laptop, like a headphone jack, it will have already gone through a digital to analog conversion and some amplification and you won't get the advantage of the very good DAC in the Decco.