how to: digital audio out?

[nate13]

hey all! im hoping that maybe someone can point me in the direction to find how to do digital out? ive got a 1ghz iMac, and i cant for the life of me connect a older 4 piece speaker system + sub with digital in. my only other option would be getting a splitter and connecting the seperate inputs on the sub. thanx for the help! oh and btw, i tried connecting it to the headphone jack with no sound whatsoever. :(

[G5Unit]

Maybe a USB sound Card? I don't know. I use optical out, but that's on my PowerMac.

[CanadaRAM]

hey all! im hoping that maybe someone can point me in the direction to find how to do digital out? ive got a 1ghz iMac, and i cant for the life of me connect a older 4 piece speaker system + sub with digital in. my only other option would be getting a splitter and connecting the seperate inputs on the sub. thanx for the help! oh and btw, i tried connecting it to the headphone jack with no sound whatsoever. :(
The iMac G4 (please specify the model of your Mac in the body of your post) does not have a digital audio out, just a headphone (analog, stereo) output.

So to get digital surround output you will need a USB or Firewire interface like the M-Audio Sonica Theatre (which seems to be discontinued) or the Transit (http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Transit-main.html), which supplies a TOSLINK optical output.