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piltupso

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 29, 2006
123
0
Okay I know this is a newbie question but the only macs I have worked with so far have been laptops with built in speakers. What kind of speakers can I hook up to my new Mac Pro when it gets here? I am switching from PC's and while crusing through Dell's website to make me feel better about my decsion to buy a Mac I realised in all my shopping I have never heard mention of a sound card, is this something built in or am I going to need to get a card of some kind of card to listen to my itunes while I work? I am a little ashamed to ask this question but as I am waiting for my ship date I keep thinking up all these little details. Thanks in advance.
 
piltupso said:
Okay I know this is a newbie question but the only macs I have worked with so far have been laptops with built in speakers. What kind of speakers can I hook up to my new Mac Pro when it gets here? I am switching from PC's and while crusing through Dell's website to make me feel better about my decsion to buy a Mac I realised in all my shopping I have never heard mention of a sound card, is this something built in or am I going to need to get a card of some kind of card to listen to my itunes while I work? I am a little ashamed to ask this question but as I am waiting for my ship date I keep thinking up all these little details. Thanks in advance.

The 'sound card' is built into the Mac Pro, which has both analogue audio in/out and digital audio in/out. There's a headphone socket on the front panel as well.

Not to steal this thread, but I am wondering whether the headphone socket superscedes the rear audio out connections.

If I have a stereo/speakers connected to the rear audio analogue output, will they 'switch-off' when I plug my headphones in the front socket?
 
reh said:
You'll definitely want to research your purchase a bit more.

http://www.apple.com/macpro/specs.html

It has both 3.5mm minijack (headphone jack) outputs (2 of 'em) and optical out as well.

Well to tell the truth I have been researching since April when the Mac Pro was still a rumor,and I did notice the headphone jacks and the optical ports in the spec sheet. I am not planning to hook up to a high end stereo system and I must admit optical ports are a bit beyond my experience. I guess I was just looking for an assurance the machine would support the PC type speakers I am currently running until I can change those out and without mention of what was driving the sound behind the ports I was looking for a little clarification. Also in all of the reviews I have read the only sound capability mentioned so far was that of a whimpy internal speaker. Guess this is a bit of a rant but it late and work comes early.:eek:
 
piltupso said:
I guess I was just looking for an assurance the machine would support the PC type speakers I am currently running...
Any speakers that use a standard headphone jack will work (and then some).
 
Quite frankly, Apple's audio connections have always confused me. I wish they would just ship their best computer with a real soudcard.
 
Thanks for the input. I felt dumb asking, but coming from the PC world I was surprised by the lack of a mention of the sound card and even more surprised by my faliure to notice the ommission. Since all my free time has been reading comparing and drooling over the Mac Pro, sound was just not a big issue. Expected arrival date is Aug 24, can' wait. Thanks again
 
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