5.1 surround sound speakers

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So I have a set of 5.1 surround sound speakers that I had been letting my brother use on his computer. I want to know if I can run them to my macbook. here is the problem: the speakers run three sets of audio plugins: green, black, orange (not in any particular order, but for the center speaker, rear speakers, and the sub/front speakers). They came with a little box thing that converts those three plugs into basic red/white audio inputs for a tv.

My question to ya'll: is there any possibility of then turning the red/white wires into a single input for my macbook? Or maybe some kind of USB converter?
 
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Well, I have a device that converts the red/white thingys into a headphone-style jack, so if you had what I have you could then simply plug all of that into the headphone jack of your macbook. I have no idea where to buy them though, maybe someone else can help.
 
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alright cool, at least that means that this device exists.

anyone know where to find it? or a technical name for it?
 
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todd51

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If you have a Radio Shack around you, they usually have a HUGE selection of audio adapters, check there first, or try them out online, good luck!
 
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Hey,

So what if I want to go straight from the orange, green and black plugs on the 5.1 surround sound system and connect it to my macbook, but I cant because it only takes the green cable. How do I resolve this? are there sound cards that are usb/external that have jacks for all3 cables?
 
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This is how its going to be :) You are going to have your rear speaker NOT playing.. unless you get griffin wirewave or external sound card with 5.1. that supports mac!
 
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Creative has some external USB soundcards that have 5.1 outputs and offer high quality. I don't know if they work on macs and many have been discontinued. Try eBay.
 
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As far as I know the analogue speakers with 1/8"th jacks cannot be used to get the 5.1 surround sound from macs and if you wanna use this sort of speakers FireWave or a similar product is the way to go.
What mac supports thou is optical audio output from the same headphone jack and that gives you lossless quality (If you can afford to change your speakers or you have a home audio system that works with optical input this is the way to go)
 
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Get one of these. I bought one because I wanted to use my 5.1 surround speakers on my xbox 360. You'll need that, and a 1/8" headphone plug-to-RCA cord (usually can find them for a few bucks) as well.

It works wonders and you can turn anything with RCA into true-5.1 surround sound.
 
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Get one of these. I bought one because I wanted to use my 5.1 surround speakers on my xbox 360. You'll need that, and a 1/8" headphone plug-to-RCA cord (usually can find them for a few bucks) as well.

It works wonders and you can turn anything with RCA into true-5.1 surround sound.

Have you used them with your Mac? from what I can see, u need another converter to to get a left and right RCA out of the normal headphone jack and then connect the 5.1 speakers.(as you mentioned)
I don't think it could be used as actual OS X managed surround ?

Can you try this and check the Audio output in system preferences and see if you manage all the channels ? I'm not very optimistic about this, I think it just makes a virtual surround from left and right inputs, something like Ambiance stereo .

Looking forward to reading your reply
 

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if your portable has a spdif optical output, usally in the same plug as the earphones but its optical than look at the creative labs decoder ddts-100

get a 5.1 pci soundcard
 
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If you want the stereo channels that the macbook outputs to be mapped to the rear channels (Stereo surround), then get one of those converters from radioshack.

But if you want true 5.1 surround, then besides an external soundcard or the FireWave, there's no other option. Of course, if your speakers have the option of upmixing it to 5.1 (Dolby Prologic) like an external amplifier/receiver, then you can very well use that. But for true 5.1 you will need a soundcard. Of course, the Macbook Pro/iMac has an optical out built in for SPDIF passthrough..
 

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