I tried hooking up the speakers on my Viewsonic 19" Widesreen LCD monitor and it didn't fit as it was to big so i went to DickSmith and brought a stero plug that will fit a 3.5mm plug into a 2.5mm plug and that did fit but the sound was not there and did make weird sounds.

So why hasn't it worked or does it need special speakers. ???

sounds like its a mini toslink connection - need optical cable and optical input for speakers (if thats the case)

You can check if it's optical.
Look into the hole - if it's optical it will light up red when an app is using sound.
There usually double as standard analog speaker/headphone connections though.

The G4 Digital Audio models were so named because of some wanky 'precision' amplifier designed to power USB speakers. It does not have optical audio.


B.

According to Apple's specs it has a mini jack for "connection to Apple Pro speakers" - whatever that means and a headphone jack. According to MacTracker it has a 3.5mm analog output jack & a 2.5mm Apple Pro Speaker jack. Could be that the 2.5 is special but you will probably need to RTFM to find out more. It's downloadable from Apple if you don't have it.

Try the headphone jack.

yep thats where the pro speakers connect, it is a standard output, ie you theoretically can connect regular speakers to it, but it has a strage 4 pin 2.5mm connector with a wired jacket too, effectivly 5 pins.

A company i think griffin made an adaptor for that to regular terminals for connection to normakl speakers, try a google search.

The 'Apple Pro' speaker jack on those is a specialised form of USB.

B.

and brains no its not... but the thing you'd want is here

http://www.fosh.com.au/fosh/Products/gr/psb/psb.htm

Thanks for the the reply's guys so I can't use normal speakers on that port so I would have to use the USB Pro Speakers are these easy to get and how much would I be looking at.

I use a standard 3.5mm stereo jack that leads to RCA plugs for my amplifier inputs. Standard 3.5mm stereo jack headphones work fine too.

I'm using the Headphone jack and it is working but there's a noise in the background and louder when I move my mouse. Are those apple pro speakers expensive to buy ?

Digital Audios are pieces of crap IMO. The speakers click when I use the scroll wheel; disk activity; the works.. They make sounds (50Hz humming) the rest of the time. For me, using a 50W (continuous) per channel amp it does not sound good always. Apple fsckd up. Okay?

They made a mistake.

From reading the info on that page about the Griffin ProSpeaker breakout box I would not reccomend that you try plugging from the 2.5mm port on your G4 into an amplifier as there is power supplied out of the mac on those suitable to run speakers directly.

I would have to disagree kim, I have a DA and have used the Apple Pro Speakers and more recently Yamaha Multimedia speakers and have had none of the problems you speak of.

But I wonder if the problems you and Aussieholden speak of are to do with the fact that a plug was inserted into a jack not designed for that plug.

The user manual for the DA clearly states that if you are going to use external speakers other than the Apple Pro, you must use the Headphone jack.

Mark

I not 100% sure Aussieholden but I don't think you can use the USB Apple Pros on a DA, I think they were designed primarily for use with the Cube.

You would be better served just to get some speakers that plug into the headphone jack, but rereading your post you have a noise problem through the headphone jack. Get something that will connect to your USB port and connects to Speakers/Amplifier etc. I am fairly confident that there would be this variety of animal(Check the Griffin website). Checked for you and here it is.

http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/imic/

Mark