5.1 External Sound Card on iMac

[Reykor]

Hey there. I was thinking about purchasing an external 5.1 Sound Card to plug into my iMac since I have a 5.1 set of speakers. I found an affordable and nice one called "Sound Blaster X-Fi" by Creative but I've seen on various forums that it has no Mac OS support. If anyone knows a way to have it working on my iMac I would really appreciate it. If not, Can you tell me any other affordable Mac compatible 5.1 external sound cards?
Thanks in advance,
Regards,
Rui

 

[ChrisA]

The simplest way that will work in all cases is to connect an optical s/pdif cable from the Mac's audio output to anything that can decode the signal. A smaller size A/V receiver would work well. Then connect speakers t the av receiver. This method "just works" and AV recievers are now way-cheap.

The 1/8th inch jack on the mac is actually a dual stereo/optical out.

 

[jbyun04]

Not sure if it's the same on iMacs but in my MacBook Pro I just plug in the front channel plug into my headphone jack and I get full 5.1.
I don't think you need a soundcard.