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drrich2

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 11, 2005
964
860
Hi:

My wife will hopefully get an iMac soon and occasionally listen to iTunes on it. I'm considering speaker options; probably in the $100 - $200 range. We're not audiophiles, but obviously like good musical sound. Listen to a mix of contemporary Christian, soft rock, some country.

I've looked at some threads and of course the dizzying array of brands and models can make the eyes glaze over. But there's one issue I didn't readily find discussed.

Connection types. Years ago I had some Altec Lansings (I think they were), a 3 piece set, that used USB to connect to a PC notebook. Sounded quite good. Over the years I've gotten other speakers; my MacPro is currently hooked up to a set with a big subwoofer & 4 satellite speakers. This uses what I suppose are RCA connectors.

And some people use optical inputs.

So, any significant pros & cons to the varied connector types? I'd think USB would be very easy, yet RCA connectors seem to be most common. I assume optical connectors are very high end, and computers don't usually come with optical outputs that I know of.

Richard.
 
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