Dumb question regarding "Output Device" in audio preferences...

[cyberjunky]

Hi there.

Having gone through the settings, i have a speaker system plugged into my white macbook through the 3.5mm audio jack. I am running OS X Leopard 10.5.7 and am unable to find the options that i thought were available previously in tiger to configure the speaker setup/orientation. For example whether i am using satellite speakers, or 2 speakers either side, 3 4 or whatever it was, just like i would if i was using windows. It has a section under "Sound" then "Output", however it seems to be automated, i cannot add or remove, or edit items within the list.



I just want to know how to properly configure mac os x, to work with my speaker system, it has one bass unit and 5 satellite speakers.

Thanks in advance.

 

[madog]

I don't believe the MacBook supports 5.1 surround sound without a toslink cable or some other external adapter. After that, Perian is a free app that enables surround sound in various apps such as QuickTime.

 

[cyberjunky]

thanks for your reponse. Meanwhile i have ordered a 5-way headphone splitter so i can plug in all 3 of the cables that the speaker system uses and hopefully get proper audio out on it.

 

[madog]

I don't believe a splitter would do it. It might be able to get sound to all of the speakers, however, I don't think it would be "true" surround (edit: from looking at the Firewave, I might be wrong). You would either need the Griffin Firewave (which might actually be a "splitter" in a sense, but looks to be discontinued), or a Optical Toslink cable with mini-adapter.

And then I think the Mac only technically supports surround in the DVDPlayer app, but the Perian app allows it to work in QuickTime (I know), and possibly other apps as well (though I don't imagine it would be much useful in anything else, maybe VLC).