firewire/usb audio hardware?

sentofunosentofuno
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
I was quite surprised to find creative doesn't seem to support Mac OS. I'm a recent switcher with a Mac mini and I assumed the best known soundcard company would somehow.



I'd like a 5.1 surround setup from my mini, anyone have any suggestions? thanks.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 3
    shalmanesershalmaneser Posts: 44member
    Try the Sonica Theater 7.1 Surround Sound USB Card from M-Audio. I had one of these for my Powerbook and it works a charm - just never got around to actually getting the 5.1 speakers



    Bear in mind that unlike the USB Audigy from Creative, this doesn't do onboard decoding of either Dolby Digital or DTS audio. If you mostly need it for movies, I'd suggest VLC Media Player. This will handle the decoding and send it out via USB to the card, which then has standard outputs for up to 7.1 audio.



    Make sure you read the ReadMe file that comes with VLC for instructions on how to set up the card properly. There's a known issue there where VLC apparently mis-matches channel allocations - easily fixed but a little confusing. Search the forums on the VideoLAN site for more info.



    Hope that helps.
  • Reply 2 of 3
    sentofunosentofuno Posts: 14member
    ahh! cheers for that, thats the kind of thing i was looking for.
  • Reply 3 of 3
    shalmanesershalmaneser Posts: 44member
    No probs!
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