[Warhaven]

The Griffin iFire has been discontinued for a long time, and I can't seem to find it anywhere online. I inherited a non-functioning iLamp G4 and corresponding Apple Pro Speakers and was wondering if anyone has (or knowledge of) spliced the cable and power the speakers via USB or Firewire and run the audio over a standard 3.5mm stereo jack?

[shifuimam]

It seems like the Apple Pro Speakers aren't amplified - they require an amplified signal from the computer. Unless I'm mistaken, normal computer speakers are amped inside the speaker itself.

If not, it shouldn't be that difficult, depending on the voltage required to power the speakers. If it's just 5.5v, all you have to do is solder the power wires from the speakers to the +/- power pins on a USB or FireWire female plug and you're good to go.

[ibookuser2]

You're correct that the speakers aren't amplified. The best way to use them is to cut the cables before the Y, so you have individual cables coming off of the back of each speaker. Each cable will have two conductors, which can be connected to an amplifier.

shifuimam, unless you add electronics to actually enumerate on the USB bus and request power, you shouldn't draw more than 100mA from a USB port, which most speaker power amps almost certainly will. Even then, you shouldn't go above 500mA. Yes, there are devices that don't conform to the standard, but they can result in the system disabling the port and putting up an error message...

[shdwghst457]

and macs don't like it when their ports get disabled. ask my poor Cube that has murdered the firewire ports on 3 consecutive logic boards... and yes the iMac G4 speakers use an unusual jack because there's an extra pin for power.