logitech z5500 speakers with mbp

[Ipaqman]

hey all,

i was thinking of purchasing the logitech z5500 speakers to go with my new macbook pro. has anyone had any experience with these speakers with a mbp? is the mbp sound card any good?

thanks,
ipaqman

 

[anti-microsoft]

They look good but i think they won't be able to travel with you

 

[CanadaRAM]

hey all,

i was thinking of purchasing the logitech z5500 speakers to go with my new macbook pro. has anyone had any experience with these speakers with a mbp? is the mbp sound card any good?

thanks,
ipaqman

IIRC the Z5500s have optical inputs with their own digital decoder... therefore the Mac's D/A convertors ('sound card') won't have anything to do with it. Just run an optical cable to the Z5500s and you'll have a pure digital source.

 

[Elkef77]

Z-5500

I don't know if you already did or not. But I would be careful. I just bought them and although I get perfect stereo sound, there seems to be NO WAY to make Leopard play surround sound...

The Z-5500 Works Perfect with my Xbox and DVD player though and they sound really good for such a reasonably prices set. I like them better than my more expensive active speakers.

 

[bigandy]

Just avoid DVD Player and you'll get surround.

VLC is best


I'd rather have the wood ones, but it looks like quite a bit of work

 

[Eddyisgreat]

Works great for me.


My setup pretty much owns everyone else , specially when I put the subs on full

MBP + z5500

 

[mgacam2]

I have them and if you use optical you'll get beautiful digital surround sound goodness. It works VERY well.

 

[Alrescha]

there seems to be NO WAY to make Leopard play surround sound...

I'm not sure why you say this, I have the Z-5500 set plugged into my Mac Mini and get Dolby Digital 5.1 and dts with VLC, DVD Player, and Quicktime with Perian.

A.

 

[mperkins37]

I concur, I get perfect 5.1 surround out of all my programs also.
Must be hooking em up wrong.

 

[zepprock7]

I just ordered these speakers, but they have not come in yet. What is the most efficient way to hook them up to an xbox 360 and a macbook pro. I am thinking about the toslink/toslink-mini adaptor to go to my MBP, but what connection would you use for the xbox 360?

Would this work for my xbox 360 and still give me 5.1 surround sound?

http://www.amazon.com/Console-Adapt...?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1211298140&sr=8-11

 

[Tilpots]

Any way (or product besides TV) to hook up the MBP to the speakers wirelessly? And still get the 5.1 surround?

 

[wchong]

I just ordered these speakers, but they have not come in yet. What is the most efficient way to hook them up to an xbox 360 and a macbook pro. I am thinking about the toslink/toslink-mini adaptor to go to my MBP, but what connection would you use for the xbox 360?

Would this work for my xbox 360 and still give me 5.1 surround sound?

http://www.amazon.com/Console-Adapt...?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1211298140&sr=8-11

Connect an optical S/PDIF cable from the AV connector on the Component HD AV Cable to the digital audio input jack on the receiver

 

[zepprock7]

Connect an optical S/PDIF cable from the AV connector on the Component HD AV Cable to the digital audio input jack on the receiver

Is that using the same connection on the receiver that my MBP would be using with a toslink to toslink-mini cable?

 

[alphaod]

Yes the Z5500 work with optical, though I'm running an Audigy 2 NX external soundcard; I feel that works a bit better.

 

[zepprock7]

Yes the Z5500 work with optical, though I'm running an Audigy 2 NX external soundcard; I feel that works a bit better.

Right I understand that they work with optical, but if I keep my MBP plugged into the optical on the receiver, how should I hook up my xbox 360? I know I could always get a regular toslink cable and then get a toslink to toslink mini adaptor and just move the plug when I want to play 360 or use MBP, but of the remaining options, is there anything I could use for my 360?

I thought about buying http://www.amazon.com/Console-Adapt...?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1211298140&sr=8-11, but I want to make sure the sound quality is conserved.

 

[alphaod]

Right I understand that they work with optical, but if I keep my MBP plugged into the optical on the receiver, how should I hook up my xbox 360? I know I could always get a regular toslink cable and then get a toslink to toslink mini adaptor and just move the plug when I want to play 360 or use MBP, but of the remaining options, is there anything I could use for my 360?

I thought about buying http://www.amazon.com/Console-Adapt...?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1211298140&sr=8-11, but I want to make sure the sound quality is conserved.

This is why I said an external sound card is better; the external sound card has the standard analog 4 port (front, center/woofer, rear, surround) for up to 7.1 surround sound. Then you can plug the Xbox 360 into the Toslink optical port.

If you don't want to buy an external sound card, I'd think you can use that adapter you looked at or you can just use a regular stereo cable without any adapters, plug it into the speakers and enable Matrix mode, which is essentially up converting stereo to surround.

 

[zepprock7]

OK, I think I'll go with the adaptor for now since it is a lot cheaper. Thanks a lot for your help.

 

[zepprock7]

Connect an optical S/PDIF cable from the AV connector on the Component HD AV Cable to the digital audio input jack on the receiver

optical S/PDIF is a toslink cable right? If I connect that from the AV cable on my 360 to the receiver, will the sound be real 5.1 surround sound or just sound coming through 5 speakers? As you can probably tell, I don't know much about this stuff.

 

[alphaod]

optical S/PDIF is a toslink cable right? If I connect that from the AV cable on my 360 to the receiver, will the sound be real 5.1 surround sound or just sound coming through 5 speakers? As you can probably tell, I don't know much about this stuff.

TOSLINK is a registered trademark of Toshiba and yes they are the same.

You will get real 5.1 surround sound as long as your source is 5.1 (eg: If you play a movie with stereo, it will stay stereo, but come out of 5 speakers, you play movie with 5.1 then it will output as 5.1)

 

[zepprock7]

Thanks for your help. I got them all set up and everything is working great.