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Cubes, Cubes, Cubes...

bunnspecial

bunnspecial

macrumors G3
Original poster
May 3, 2014
8,391
6,565
Kentucky
Or perhaps this post should more appropriately be titled Cubes, Cubes, Cubes, Cubes.

At the beginning of the year, a Cube was at the top of my wish list. I then bought two within a week of each other. Both were 450mhz but each had their relative merits-one came with the speakers, while the other had a CD-RW drive.

A few months later, I bought a factory 500mhz one with a CD-RW.

Shortly after that, member Jbarely very generously sent me an 800mhz upgrade for the cost of shipping plus a token amount of money. That upgrade went into one of my 450mhz models.

Then, just last night I made a deal to buy one with a 1.5ghz upgrade.

I think I really am done with Cubes now, although I realize those are famous last words.

Now I just need to finish the upgrades I have planned. I'm currently using a mix of GeForce 2MXs and Radeon 7500s, although I have a GEForce 6200 that I need to get flashed. I also would still really like to find a GeForce 3. One place out on the interwebs offers a Superdrive upgrade that I'd like to try.
 
bunnspecial said:
Or perhaps this post should more appropriately be titled Cubes, Cubes, Cubes, Cubes.

At the beginning of the year, a Cube was at the top of my wish list. I then bought two within a week of each other. Both were 450mhz but each had their relative merits-one came with the speakers, while the other had a CD-RW drive.

A few months later, I bought a factory 500mhz one with a CD-RW.

Shortly after that, member Jbarely very generously sent me an 800mhz upgrade for the cost of shipping plus a token amount of money. That upgrade went into one of my 450mhz models.

Then, just last night I made a deal to buy one with a 1.5ghz upgrade.

I think I really am done with Cubes now, although I realize those are famous last words.

Now I just need to finish the upgrades I have planned. I'm currently using a mix of GeForce 2MXs and Radeon 7500s, although I have a GEForce 6200 that I need to get flashed. I also would still really like to find a GeForce 3. One place out on the interwebs offers a Superdrive upgrade that I'd like to try.
Click to expand...

The beauty of the Cube is its looks. I'd really love to see a 2012 Mac Mini put into a Cube for a really souped up Cube.
 
So jealous of the the 1.5ghz cube. For the cube without the USB speakers, I have found a USB C-media USB adapter that works with standard speakers. Unfortunately, it is out of stock at DX. It was real cheap and can hold you over until you can find another USB and Pro speaker set.

http://www.dx.com/p/usb-2-0-virtual-7-1-channel-sound-card-adapter-45577#.VVFTVTetAfA

You will probably need to use a short USB extender. I got it to work with 10.3 so it should work with Tiger or Leopard.

I also see some on E-bay for a few bucks that is described to work with Mac OS. I haven't tried those though.
 
Last edited:
California said:
The beauty of the Cube is its looks. I'd really love to see a 2012 Mac Mini put into a Cube for a really souped up Cube.
Click to expand...

I've seen someone put an older Core Duo Mini in a Cube, but the problem with the newer Minis is the weird shape of the logic board.
 
Funny note is three of Ben's cubes were mine :)

Anyway I find myself with no time to work on computer stuff anymore with a full time job and college so I am slowly selling my stuff. Would just like more space in my room :D
 
spf2 said:
So jealous of the the 1.5ghz cube. For the cube without the USB speakers, I have found a USB C-media USB adapter that works with standard speakers. Unfortunately, it is out of stock at DX. It was real cheap and can hold you over until you can find another USB and Pro speaker set.

http://www.dx.com/p/usb-2-0-virtual-7-1-channel-sound-card-adapter-45577#.VVFTVTetAfA

You will probably need to use a short USB extender. I got it to work with 10.3 so it should work with Tiger or Leopard.

I also see some on E-bay for a few bucks that is described to work with Mac OS. I haven't tried those though.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link on that.

At the moment, I only have one set of Cube speakers. Those are cheap enough that-given your success-I'll just go ahead and order several.

I basically use one of three OSs on PPC Macs-Tiger, Leopard, and OS 9. On G4s that can natively boot OS 9, I usually skip Tiger, as the only real situation I've found myself in where Tiger worked but Leopard wouldn't is with my SCSI scanner.

Do you have any experience with using it in OS 9? I actually use that pretty extensively with my Cubes, as especially with the lower spec ones it works great.
 
I just tested it on the MDD with 10.4 and OS9.2.2 and it worked great without a driver on both.
 
spf2 said:
So jealous of the the 1.5ghz cube. For the cube without the USB speakers, I have found a USB C-media USB adapter that works with standard speakers. Unfortunately, it is out of stock at DX. It was real cheap and can hold you over until you can find another USB and Pro speaker set.

http://www.dx.com/p/usb-2-0-virtual-7-1-channel-sound-card-adapter-45577#.VVFTVTetAfA

You will probably need to use a short USB extender. I got it to work with 10.3 so it should work with Tiger or Leopard.

I also see some on E-bay for a few bucks that is described to work with Mac OS. I haven't tried those though.
Click to expand...

I think that pretty much any generic USB-audio adapter will work with OSX. They all seem to use the same budget chip. The real benefit with the official Cube speakers is that they are powered from the Cube and I believe the Cube passes more power to the Cube speakers than the standard 0.5W you get with USB powered speakers. Because USB powered speakers need fairly short cables to conserve power, an audio adapter plus powered speakers seems to be be the best compromise.
 
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