how to connect a 5.1 audio system to a iMac G5???

[toughboy]

Well as it seems in my signiture, I am planning to buy an iMac G5 but there are things that I can not give up, like my Creative 6600 6.1 sound system.. it can work like a 5.1 without a problem but I dont know if iMac G5 can manage it as a 5.1, or it just support 2.1s...

thanks all in advance...

 

[Anonymous Freak]

5.1 is optical-only.

The iMac G5 has a single audio out port that acts in one of two ways:

Analog, 2-channel (stereo) out. This is just like a conventional 'headphone' port.

Digital/Optical 5.1-channel (surround) out. This uses a special optical mini-TOSLink cable (commonly used by portable CD players or MiniDisc recorders, as well as the AirPort Express,) to connect to a receiver with optical input. Unless your Creative speakers have an optical input, you cannot use 5.1 with them from the iMac.

Please note that this is a single port that does BOTH of these. So you can't have both optical and analog plugged in at the same time. It's one OR the other. (Just like the AirPort Express.)

 

[jared_kipe]

As far as I can tell the 6600 series only has analog inputs, so you would need some kind of decoding box to take the digital optical signle from the imac and turn it into (probably 1/8 inch) analog inputs for the speakers. There are some speakers on the market that have this built in, for instance the higher end logitechs.

 

[mslifkin]

As far as I can tell the 6600 series only has analog inputs, so you would need some kind of decoding box to take the digital optical signle from the imac and turn it into (probably 1/8 inch) analog inputs for the speakers. There are some speakers on the market that have this built in, for instance the higher end logitechs.

He can get a SoundBlaster Extigy external sound card. It has both coax and TosLink digital inputs, an analog input, and analog 5.1 outputs. Plus, if you've got a PC it's got a USB connection as well. I'm using it to use two Macs and 1 PC through the same set of 5.1 speakers.

Regards,
Marc