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Surround sound setup.

AuroraProject

AuroraProject

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 19, 2008
1,113
11
Right there
I bought a 2011 Mac Mini server yesterday and I have a question on setting it up for surround sound. It is currently connected to a Mitsubishi tv via hdmi, and sound plays through the tv speakers. I want to connect the Mini to my receiver via toslink cable so the audio goes to the receiver and the video goes to the tv. Once I have the toslink cable are there any special settings I need to change? Will sound come through both the tv and the receiver?

Thanks.
 
I don't have a MacMini nor a Mac that outputs audio via the MiniDisplayport or Thunderbolt.
However I believe that you might see something about them when you have them connected to the Mac.
Check in the Sound preferences pane in System Preferences.
 

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I took a peek at the specs and they don't indicate anything one way or the other. I think a call to Apple customer support is in order and even then you may have to be patient to get a final answer.

I'm not sure how the Mac Mini addresses a digital audio signal. it is quite possible that it will output sound only through the HDMI port when it's active.

My suggestion would be to use your receiver for the HDMI switching. Then you can route the signals properly.
 
Yes, it is possible to output the sound from the optical output port and video from HDMI (or Thunderbolt/miniDisplayPort). Once you have the toslink cable connected, launch system preferences, select sound, then select output and select the headphone port/optical minijack for sound output, instead of the HDMI port.
 
mrklaw said:
can it do both, or still only one?
Click to expand...

having sound output to both (assuming its even possible) is a pretty bad idea. the sound from the receiver and TV won't sync 100% so you'll get an echo like effect. I tried this with an ATV 2 with HDMI connected to my TV and optical out. Didn't know why it sounded so bad til I muted the TV.
 
Oneman said:
Yes, it is possible to output the sound from the optical output port and video from HDMI (or Thunderbolt/miniDisplayPort). Once you have the toslink cable connected, launch system preferences, select sound, then select output and select the headphone port/optical minijack for sound output, instead of the HDMI port.
Click to expand...

Yes this is correct. I think the option under the sound settings will be SPDIF if the headphone port switches to optical output to your AV receiver.

It is not possible to have sound output from both, you have to choose one or the other.
 
It is either/or, not both. You can easily switch this in settings or plex.
 

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Good to know! Thanks for the answers folks, the Toslink cable shipped today, so I should have it set up by the end of the week.
 
2011 Mac mini surround sound

Please check out this thread:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3238453?start=0&tstart=0

So far, I haven't figured out a way to get 5.1 sound out of my 2011 Mac Mini 2.5 Ghz with AMD graphics. (see my post at the end of the second page). The "correct answer" didn't work for me. I used HDMI out to my Pioneer Elite 60 inch plasma and then took Toslink out of TV to Rotel receiver, I didn't get 5.1 sound. I tried multiple other options.


Please let us know if you figure it out.

VP
 
Outrigger said:
having sound output to both (assuming its even possible) is a pretty bad idea. the sound from the receiver and TV won't sync 100% so you'll get an echo like effect. I tried this with an ATV 2 with HDMI connected to my TV and optical out. Didn't know why it sounded so bad til I muted the TV.
Click to expand...

? Obviously I would have the TV sound muted when listening through the receiver, and the receiver would be off when listening through the TV speakers..
 
If you plug the TOSLINK cable into the audio port it will auto-detect the connection and use the digital out. If there is also an HDMI connector it may default to using that but you should be able to change it around. A faster way than going into system preferences is to option-click on the volume icon in the menu bar. You can then select which input/output device you want to use.

However, there seems to be a bug in OSX Lion that means you cannot get multichannel output out of your mac. So while it all should work in theory, right now it is bugged and doesn't work.

However, it is possible (again, in theory) to get simultaneous optical and HDMI sound output. If you open Audio MIDI Setup and click the "+" under the list of devices on the left, you can create a new "aggregate device", where you can bundle up different output ports into one virtual output source in the OS.
 
Ruahrc said:
However, there seems to be a bug in OSX Lion that means you cannot get multichannel output out of your mac. So while it all should work in theory, right now it is bugged and doesn't work.
Click to expand...

That is the second time you have made that statement in this thread and this is the second time I'm stating I do in fact get surround when playing movies in iTunes downloaded through iTunes. I am using Lion as my OS.

Cave Man said:
I get Dolby Digital and DTS passthrough to my Onkyo receiver by optical from my Mini running Lion. Can you elaborate on your statement?
Click to expand...

So do I. I have an Onkyo TX-SR707. My Mini is running Lion and is connected to the Onkyo using an HDMI cable.
 
I guess I'm having specific trouble with getting multichannel output using VLC in Lion. The latest public release of VLC had multichannel output working fine in Snow Leopard, but with the latest SL (10.6.8) it broke somehow. A more recent beta release of VLC gets it working in SL again, but Lion is broken all around.

The developers of VLC claim there is a bug in Snow Leopard/Lion's multichannel output introduced in 10.6.8 (and carried over to Lion) that is causing the loss of functionality but as you state, some others seem to be able to get multichannel output using other programs. I have been able to get it to work using MPlayerX, however, it doesn't seem to stay in sync with the video. I don't know if it is a problem with Lion or MPlayer though.

So I suppose it might be more conservative to say that I'm having problems with VLC and multichannel ouptut in Lion.
 
Mr.C said:
That is the second time you have made that statement in this thread and this is the second time I'm stating I do in fact get surround when playing movies in iTunes downloaded through iTunes. I am using Lion as my OS.



So do I. I have an Onkyo TX-SR707. My Mini is running Lion and is connected to the Onkyo using an HDMI cable.
Click to expand...

As do I. '11 Mini on Lion connected via HDMI and TosLINK to an Arcam Movie Solo 5.1 (Arcam doesn't process the HDMI audio channels so requires TosLINK
 
Wirelessly posted (iPhone 4: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

I received the optical cable. After some tinkering I'm getting 5.1 from DVD & Bluray rips using Boxee or Plex. No multi-channel from VLC at all. 5.1 also works fine from the built in DVD app.
 
vpoms said:
Please check out this thread:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3238453?start=0&tstart=0

So far, I haven't figured out a way to get 5.1 sound out of my 2011 Mac Mini 2.5 Ghz with AMD graphics. (see my post at the end of the second page). The "correct answer" didn't work for me. I used HDMI out to my Pioneer Elite 60 inch plasma and then took Toslink out of TV to Rotel receiver, I didn't get 5.1 sound. I tried multiple other options.


Please let us know if you figure it out.

VP
Click to expand...

I don't know if this will work for you but this worked for me. afther half hour trying different set ups. I took my hdmi in to tv. and toslink to my receiver and I got it working on my mac mini 2012quad core intel core i7

----------
vpoms said:
Please check out this thread:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3238453?start=0&tstart=0

So far, I haven't figured out a way to get 5.1 sound out of my 2011 Mac Mini 2.5 Ghz with AMD graphics. (see my post at the end of the second page). The "correct answer" didn't work for me. I used HDMI out to my Pioneer Elite 60 inch plasma and then took Toslink out of TV to Rotel receiver, I didn't get 5.1 sound. I tried multiple other options.


Please let us know if you figure it out.

VP
Click to expand...

I don't know if this will work for you but this worked for me. afther half hour trying different set ups. I took my hdmi in to tv. and toslink to my receiver and I got it working on my mac mini 2012quad core intel core i7
 
IIRC, you need to use the "Audio Midi Setup" app in Utilities to set up additional "speakers" if you have sound out via HDMI.
 
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