Global Reset: MacBookPro's audio port has me stumped

MacBookPro's audio port has me stumped

Scott Hughes — Sun, 26 Feb 2006 14:37:00 -0800

Documentation for the MacBookPro’s audio line-in/line-out say that it’s a combined stereo and optical digital plug. If you look down in it, it looks deeper than your standard stereo plug, so I believe them that there is something fiber-optic waiting for me at the end of that tunnel… The problem is: how am I supposed to get to it? If you take a look at the end of your standard optical digital cable, it’s immediately obvious that there is no way that it will plug into the same hole as a headphone jack. I’ve already purchased the DVI-to-S-Video adapter so that I can hook it up to my TV. But I don’t have a good way to get audio out without that plug. Granted, I could just use a stereo-to-RCA adapter, but my home theater setup isn’t easily wired that way. I have all my stuff switched through optical digital boxes, with no connection on the RCA plugs.

Anyone have any guesses about how I’m supposed to access that? I’m hoping someone will tell me that it’s a common enough port and that there are adapters readily available for other brands.

Update Well, thanks to the commenters, I now know that Monster sells exactly what I need.

"MacBookPro's audio port has me stumped" by Scott Hughes

Sun, 26 Feb 2006 17:42:10 -0800

The power of the internets… thanks Patrick and Eric. I looked around on Apple’s site quite a bit before giving up. I see that “mini-to-TOSLINK” should’ve been my search term. I checked every cable they sold at Best Buy and didn’t see anything like this, so I guess I’ll go ahead and order the Monster one. Thanks for the direct links!

"MacBookPro's audio port has me stumped" by Eric Blair

Sun, 26 Feb 2006 16:41:06 -0800

Don’t have a MacBookPro, so this is conjecture - could this be the same type of combo minijack/optical plug that Apple used on the Airport Express?

Monster sells this seperately for $30 or you can buy it from Apple as part of the Airport Express Stereo Connection Kit for $40.

Looks like Belkin makes one as well for $30.

Never actually looked for these myself, buy your question rang a bell. Not sure if these are the same thing the MBP uses, but…

"MacBookPro's audio port has me stumped" by P. Oscar Boykin

Sun, 26 Feb 2006 16:38:59 -0800

I am just guessing:

The sony minidisc portables used to have an interface identical to what you have described. They used a special optical cable that has one end that looks like a 1/4 inch stereo jack. As you said, at the end of that jack there is an optical fiber .

The other end of this cable has a standard TOSLINK (I think it is called) optical connector. I have a few of these cables myself.

Looking around the web, it seems these are called “miniplug” connectors. These might be of interest:

amazon has an adapter you might be interested in, or the second cable here is a miniplug-toslink cable.

I guess if Apple is shipping a ton of these laptops, it should be possible to find such a cable from their site.

Good luck.