Macbook, 5.1 surround sound (please help :)

[weenerdog]

I currently have a macbook and am interested in buying logitech 5.1 surround speakers but... I understand that they come with a green, orange and black cables to plug into your computer. Macs have earphone socket and another one that looks similar. I've heard you can just plug in the green one and it works but do all the speakers still work and is the sound reasonable quality. Is their a usb adapter I can use to plug all three plugs into. Last of all does the macbook have a decent enough sound card to handle this sort of system. Please help me and (this may sound dumb but) answer in simple terms.

Thanks

 

[LeeTom]

what you want to look for are 5.1 surround speaker sets with a DIGITAL OPTICAL input. that will allow you to run 1 cable (a mini-Toslink to Toslink) from your macbook to the speakers, without any extra boxes. I believe that the model that has this input is the most expensive one they sell, but I didn't look all that hard.

alternatively, you can buy the Griffin Firewave ($99 US list) and use any speaker sets:
http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/firewave#

lee tom

 

[TBi]

You'll need to use the optical out for 5.1 BUT the mac doesn't** encode 5.1 sound so you'll only get 5.1 from pre-encoded sources such as AC3 on a DVD.

You'll have to get a dedicated external soundcard if you want 5.1 for, say, games. Make sure you buy one with 3 outputs for front, rear and center/sub.

Some sound cards can encode 5.1 into the optical out but, since they have to pay royalties to dolby, not many have this capability.

**Just so you don't get a bad impression of the mac, it is more than capable of actually doing this but the encoding technique is patented and as i said above you have to pay dolby to use it.

 

[weenerdog]

Thanks guys

I think I might just go with the 2.1 Surround Speakers. Im sure it will be capable of handling that, however it still comes with three coloured cords to plug in so does anyone know if the sound quality is still good if you plug just the green one in.

 

[TBi]

There's connections for front, rear and front/sub so there is no possible way for the sound quality to get worse by not using the extra connections, just don't plug them into the speakers either. (With the exception of maybe the subwoofer but usually this will work perfectly as long as the front speakers are connected up)