I ordered a few cables to get both my PC and powerbook hooked up to my old creative extigy sound card, hoping I could then listen to either through my 5.1 speaker set.
I’d used the extigy on the mac before, and it certainly does detect it and play sound. Unfortunately I hadn’t paid much attention to the rear speakers. It turns out creative never released any drivers for the mac, so not only can I not get proper 5.1 surround sound, the CMSS feature won’t work either.
So that was a waste of time and money, considering I can get the same sound from a normal stereo cable. Apparently the newer macbooks (hopefully mine included) have optical audio out, but I’m not sure I want to buy the cable to find out?
As a “sort of” fix, I’m going to play music using parallels running Windows XP. I don’t think I’m ever going to get away from Windows for good. 🙁
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Hey, I wanted to use the extigy sound card as well for my mac mini, bought at the end of 2008, it worked fine, but after I upgraded my os x to 10.5.7, the extigy card does not appear in the sound settings in my system preferences, now i have to use the digital out, but I can then only control the speakers manually from the controller that followed my speakers. I have four speakers and a sub, and to get the rear speakers to work, I used a connector for two audio outputs from the extigy, so it plays the same sound in all 4 speakers, not the ideal solution, but, hey, I can’t let two speakers collect dust. But back to my problem, do you know if it’s possible to rollback the os x update, just to check that it might be why I can see the extigy card in my system preferences? Thanks
What if I would connect it like this:
Macbook Pro Early 2009 -> Digital Optical Audio Out -> Extigy Digital Audio In -> Orange/Green/Black 3.5mm Mini-jack out -> Logitech X530 ?
Would that work?
Hi Jeffrey,
Good question – I was thinking of doing the same. I’ve got a Macbook Pro from 2008 and from what I read a few months ago, this should work fine, as its all over optical. This is assuming 5.1 is sent out on the optical feed, but why wouldn’t it?
If you give it a try and it works, please let us know!
If I know some more about this problem I will try to find and Extigy and connect it, I will let you know if it works.. BUT:
Would I still need the USB connection?
Since its externally powered by wire,, And the audio I’m feeding it is digital optical…
And would it maintain the volume? or would I need an additional amplifier?
Anyone ?
You wouldn’t need the USB connection and you shouldn’t need an amplifier. I guess that might depend on your speaker setup, but if its a bog standard speaker set, that you’d normally plug straight in to your pc or something, no amplifier would be needed.
Hey there !
Great news! I got it to work!
I did install a program called: Soundflowerbed. To be able to control iTunes volume with my keyboard.
When playing music i put my logitech set on 50% of the sound and with movies 100%, because it just isnt loud enough for me, but hey, thats not a big problem 😛
Dolby Surround for the win 😀
I’m so glad this works. Im just thinking of buying an universal remote so that i can use just one instead of two,.
hey, just read it, I’m surprising!! oh, first, sorry for my bad english
Recently I’ve buyed an extigy usb sound card to connect with my mac mini, with leopard 10.5.7. I’ve could to configure it with stereo sound, not with 5.1, my extigy has not the remote controller
I’ve read a lot of surfing internet and nothing, I cannot configure 5.1 dolby surround with my dvd movies
what can I do? Anybody help me? said me anything…???? oh god!!!
Hey Cymmer,
I do not think you will get 5.1 surround sound with the extigy and mac mini because there are no drivers for the extigy on the mac.
If the mac mini has optical out you can use that instead of the usb connection and then you may get 5.1.
If not you will have to find a 5.1 card that has mac osx drivers.
Great ! I think surround sound systems give us cinema experience in our own home. That’s why it becomes ever more popular and affordable.
@Cymmer
@Cohen
I have 5.1 and it works perfectly. movies with 5.1 sound tracks play them like they should..
Like i said before.. i use the extigy with the optical out.
NO USB -> NO DRIVERS
Works perfect they way i have it..
Hi Jeffrey,
Just read the thread, cause i have a Soundblaster Extigy and a macbook pro too :).
You managed to use it by installing Soundflowerbed and using a optical cable, am i right? And can you controll the volume on the Soundblaster with that solution?
thx for helping out
Yeah just like I said…
You need to install soundflowerbed, and select that in your system preferences under sound output.
And when you then want to have real 5,1 on dvds and stuff. open dvd-player and go to preferences and set the output to Digital output.
When you’re done watching the movie, just restart soundflower bed, and you are good to go..
Ohyeah. soundflowerbed I use with these settings : 16Ch -> built in out-put.
And channel 1 to 5 on output [1]
..
So far… so goood 😀
Although I’m late to this post, it did put me on the right track. I still like my Extigy and really wanted to use it as my audio output device for a mac mini based media centre.
USB did actually work for a bit, then was “cut off” again by some OS update.
The TOSLINK optical cable did the trick. Also works a treat with the Plex media server .
surround sound is great for the fact it gives up a movie experience. i think as time goes on theyll be less expensive. i recently purchases one for 50$ on amazon great quality and very affordable.
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