[mousehouse]

hello,

august or september will bring me my much anticipated G5 PowerMac. now i'm looking to hook up my new Mac to my current Marantz stereo amplifier (line in). i assume that shouldn't be a problem using line-out on the PM. _but_ when playing CD's using my regular CD player on my speakers i would like to use small Logitech speakers hooked up to my PM as well...

can somebody help me with the following,

- can i hook up my Marantz line-in to the optical-out of the PM using something simple that i can buy somewhere (some DA convertor) ?

- when i do that and hook up my Logitech speakers to the regular analogue line-out, will they always play the same sound (system sounds, itunes, etc. ?)

- would getting an Airport Express be a good idea (PM and stereo are nearly next to each other), i'd just use it for streaming audio, radio, RealPlayer sound, QuickTime movie sounds etc to my stereo, preferably wired).

any other ideas appreciated!

[jamil5454]

To hook up analog speakers to an optical stream, you're going to need a digital decoder. These aren't cheap, and I'd suggest just using some type of splitter to split the stereo signal coming from the PowerMac. To be honest, I can't tell the difference when switching between digital and analog output to my digital decoder. You'll need _really_ awesome speakers to hear any discernable difference in quality between the PowerMac's analog output and the analog output coming from a digital decoder.

Don't waste your money with digital; just get a splitter.

[grobbins]

Originally Posted by mousehouse

- would getting an Airport Express be a good idea (PM and stereo are nearly next to each other), i'd just use it for streaming audio, radio, RealPlayer sound, QuickTime movie sounds etc to my stereo, preferably wired).

Airport Express isn't really a great audio product, as it as no local control or display, and can only receive audio from iTunes, not even from QuickTime Player (although there are hacks for receiving audio from other applications on the Mac as well.) There are a more flexible products you can hook up to the stereo that work well with iTunes and other audio sources, such as Soundbridge.

[mousehouse]

i'll go the "cheap" way and get myself an analogue splitter. Airport Express would be nice, but if in the default config only iTunes is supported that is not what i'm seeking. i'll keep my eyes open for a

thanks for all the replies so far!