FCS2 5.1 sound

In anticipation of 5.1 sound in FCS2, I did some research on 5.1 sound systems.

I have a G5, iMac20 and MacBook.

I wanted a speaker system that would work with all!

I have a 5.1 speaker system ($50) that has the three stereo mini plugs to plus into a card. That worked on the G5 with a PCI audio card, but cannot on the iMac or MacBook.

I did find some forum references (elsewhere) to a $150 Griffin interface box for FireWire to those three stereo mini-plugs so I could continue to use the $50 speakers.

Yesterday I went to a big box store and got the SONY STR-K790 amp and 6 speakers, with Optical Audio input, for $189 on sale.

Voila! Able to be used by the G5, iMac and MacBook for any and all 5.1 sound situation, as all have Optical jacks (built in to the headphone jacks - the jack does both!).

It took 20 minutes to place the speakers and run the wires, 3 minutes on my hands and knees with flashlight to find the Optical Out port on the G5 under the editing console, 20 seconds to select the Built-In Audio in System Prefs > Sound, and about that long to select the Optical In on the SONY amp.

Wow! It does sound awesome.

I downloaded a 5.1 test audio file, but I can't retrace my steps and find the link to share with all of you here. The SONY amp has a front panel display to tell you if the audio is 2 CH L + R, or 3.1 or 5.1.

it also has other RCA inputs (for regular audio from DVD and TV), and built in AM(!) and FM tuner (blah! why!).

Once you get STP2 Nick, how about writing an article for lafcpug about set up and use and all the groovy things that go along with monitoring 5.1

Michael Horton
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I'm hoping that ST will make 5.1 sound more intuitive for those of us used to cutting video, or working with multi-track audio tape in old days.

In the meantime, I've been re-inforcing my audio library of royalty free music and FX.