[GSurge]

Friend of mine has a situation that I can't find a solution for. His logitech speakers plug in using 3.5mm surround (the green, orange, black kind) jacks, but his Mac only has toslink inputs available. Is there some piece of hardware he can use to convert between?

 

[iriverdude]

You mean the mac has optical digital out?
He needs a av amp or a decoder, he could pickup a used home cinema dolby digital decoder cheap. There's a Denon AVD-2000 on us ebay for $90

 

[GSurge]

He's got a Mac Pro. It has optical digital audio input and output toslink ports. But the speakers he's using are like this:

Is there some way to plug those speakers into the Mac Pro's toslink ports? I assume some converter box would be needed.

 

[iriverdude]

Nope. He'll need a multi-channel DAC, also called a av amp, av pre-amp or surround decoder. Actually he'll need slightly different cables, 3.5mm to stereo RCA.

Unless you can find PC type decoders, don't some of the "upper end" Logitechs have a seperate decoder box?

 

[GSurge]

Thanks for the help. Would it be cheaper to get one of those or buy new speakers? If it is more economical to buy a multi-channel DAC or av amp, do you have any specific recommendations for which product to get him?

 

[iriverdude]

Since that Denon is probably more expensive than those Logitechs - unless those Logitechs are pretty high end models with just analogue input, it's probably best to buy new speakers with digital optical input.

 

[GSurge]

Yeah, it is just a weird situation because he purchased them recently, about $100. I think you have satiated my need for information. Thanks.