Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Line out AND Headphone out on MacPro?
- Thread starter JesterJJZ
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I am still waiting to upgrade to the next rev. Mac Pro when it is released (hopefully soon) so I can't comment on if this is normal, but it sounds to me that this is a feature in the Mac Pro's sound card versus the sound card in the G5.
The reason the line out and headphone out (and I assume TosLink optical) are all shown as different options in System Preferences is that CoreAudio is viewing those as individual sets of outs. I'm guessing that on the G5, the digital-analogue converter on the soundcard had one stereo out that was then split in two (one going to the line out and one going to the phones out). The advantage of the Mac Pro method is that software that can use more than two output channels would be able to send different output to the line out, phones out, and optical out (at least this is my assumption).
Can't say if this will work for sure, but you may try using hte Audio MIDI Setup Utility to set up output to both pairs at once.
The reason the line out and headphone out (and I assume TosLink optical) are all shown as different options in System Preferences is that CoreAudio is viewing those as individual sets of outs. I'm guessing that on the G5, the digital-analogue converter on the soundcard had one stereo out that was then split in two (one going to the line out and one going to the phones out). The advantage of the Mac Pro method is that software that can use more than two output channels would be able to send different output to the line out, phones out, and optical out (at least this is my assumption).
Can't say if this will work for sure, but you may try using hte Audio MIDI Setup Utility to set up output to both pairs at once.
The Mac Pro has two separate outputs. This is a feature, as you can for instance have a different volume on each. You can probably create a virtual aggregate device in Audio MIDI Setup that sends the same sound to both line-out and headphone out.
You might also like SoundSource:
http://www.rogueamoeba.com/freebies/
You might also like SoundSource:
http://www.rogueamoeba.com/freebies/
Neat stuff...for now I just plugged a Y-splitter on the line out for my speakers and headphones.
Now this is strange: I decided to check out Boot Camp and loaded it up this past week. When I was in Windows and had speakers in the line out and headphones in the front headphone jack, I got sound out of both. Very curious...
Sounds like a difference in the driver for the sound card under OSX and Windows. My guess is this is either because Apple did not see the need for a fully featured Windows driver or this is due to some limitations in the Windows audio APIs that caused Apple to simplify this driver to a single set of stereo outs. Just another (small) reason why CoreAudio rocks my world.