Head Phone Jack On G4 Cube ?

Hardware Hacks

I have a question I have always wanted a G4 Cube and finally got one with nothing more than the power supply and computer itself, so I have a pair of speakers and I wanted to know if I could use them with the Head-Phone Jack on the bottom of the mini ?

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iamdigitalman's picture

IIRC, the G4 cube only has di

IIRC, the G4 cube only has digital audio. Wherein they shipped with an adapter that plugs in to a USB port, and gives you a headphone jack. They also came with a set of sphere speakers.

So you need that adapter in order to make it work.

-digital Eye-wink

Eudimorphodon's picture

Cube Owners' FAQ entry

http://cubeowner.com/kbase_2/index.php?page=index_v2&id=44&c=3

A Griffin iMic is probably the most economical new option out there for adding sound to a speakerless Cube.

The dependence on USB sound cards was one of the Cube's less well-thought-out features.

--Peace

themike's picture

I think *any* dependence on U

I think *any* dependence on USB for sound is kind of ridiculous. USB is for peripherals, not speakers. That just takes up another port, and on a Cube, that is somewhat of a commodity.

Eudimorphodon's picture

Re: I think *any* dependence on U

themike wrote:
I think *any* dependence on USB for sound is kind of ridiculous. USB is for peripherals, not speakers. That just takes up another port, and on a Cube, that is somewhat of a commodity.

Can't speak firsthand about it, but supposedly another side effect of the Cube's use of USB for sound is some fairly substantial CPU overhead. I seem to remember reading once that turning off the sound whilst playing "Quake" or whatnot on the Cube has a much more dramatic effect on framerates then it does on a machine with more conventional sound hardware.

--Peace

dankephoto's picture

cheap USB audio

I picked up a USB audio jobby on eBay, cost was about US$4. It didn't require any extra drivers, just worked right out of the box (for OS X only I expect, I doubt there are classic MOS drivers.)

Sound quality ain't exactly at an audiophile level, but for a quick and dirty Cube audio solution it's fine.

Search eBay for usb audio.

dan k

themike's picture

Makes sense. It can't be all

Makes sense. It can't be all that easy to coax audio out of a serial port.

Hawaii Cruiser's picture

I just recently bought one of

I just recently bought one of those cheap $1 USB audio devices from Hong Kong off eBay for a B&W G3 with a bad audio port, and it works, but the gain and volume is way off any manageable levels, blasting away with all kinds of distortion, so it's basically worthless. Maybe I got a bad one, I don't know, but I went and got an iMic instead and that works like a charm. Sounds better than the onboard audio did, I think. Both devices only work through the onboard USB, and won't work through a USB PCI card.