getting 5.1 sound from my mac g4 sawtooth with and external sound card

[mar2178]

i have a g4 sawtooth agp 450mhz. i recently bought a 5.1 surround sound speaker system and found out that i needed a special sound card to get all the speakers working, so i went and bought an extenal usb sound card i found on ebay that said it was mac compatible, but when i got the sound card and read the instructions it says that on the mac systems there will only be 2 channel playback, which means i jus threw some money away by buying this sound card. when i switch to multichannel in my sound system prefrences and test the 5.1 speakers they all make sound when i trigger them individually, but i cant get sound out of them when i play music.my question is, can i get all of my speakers working somehow even if its not in surround sound? is there anyway to set all my satillite speakers assigned to one channel and my subwoofer working as the second channel? i am running the latest version of panther on this mac. if this isnt possible, is there a sound card that will have all my speakers working even if its not surround sound? please help me, im tired of wasting money

[bigdoug]

i have a similar question.....alot of speakers made for PC have 2 input jacks...all my g5 has is the one "headset" input. is there a way to expand that so i can play any speakers on my g5?

[Lt Major Burns]

the TOS-link optical digital out on a G5 outputs up to 7.1 channels of discreet audio. get a compatible set of speakers (i use a sony amplified 5.1 set up) and link it with the TOS-Link fibre-optic cable. it only works some of the time, and awkwardly then, like it'll play all of the system sounds, but the volume controls in the system (including the keyboard ones) are disabled. if you are watching a dvd, you have to stop it and in the preferences, select digital optical, then play again. the true 5.1 channels are outputted, but there is still a small delay as the sound sorts itself out.

i find i am happier with just the quite-ample Pro-Logic II on the amp. it works well 99.% of the time.