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G4 case mod - internal speaker?


Eric W
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Hello gang.

 

As stated in the title and description, I have a G4 case with PC innards (Gigabyte M68MT-S2P board w/ AMD Phenom II X6), and I'm wondering about possibly using the original Apple internal speaker to play regular audio, at least as an option. It would be lovely if it would behave the way it did natively, i.e. would play audio so long as no external speakers are plugged in.

 

Would it be feasible to plug it into the front panel audio connector, for example? If not, I have an old Ensoniq sound card with various outputs, including a rather promising-looking "J8-SPEAKER OUT" (4-pin blue connector) on it. Problem is, I don't know how compatible the speaker would be with the front panel connector (don't even know what the two wires do exactly, nor which two front panel pins would be best - just the left & right outputs?), nor do I know how that blue sound out connector is pinned. I can't seem to find any specifications about that online. The other connectors on the Ensoniq card are: a green "J7-TAD I/O", a white "J6-AUX" and a black "J5-CD AUDIO IN", all in addition to the familiar green, blue & pink external connections on the rear.

 

Any help in adding this finishing touch to the conversion would be greatly appreciated, and I'll get some images to post if people are interested.

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i have put some thought into this and want to use it also. but don't plug the 2watt apple speaker into the motherboard. it will blow the speaker amplifier which is only rated for .5 watt. you could find a cheap pc speaker. they are common as mud and the sound is terrible but it won't cause any issues.

 

or if you have heard the sound from the apple speaker and know how good it is . then look for a small amplifier. i found one on dealextreme.com, it was a 3watt stereo intergrated amp and it died due to bad wiring but you can still find better if you look hard enough.

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  • 1 month later...

i have been thinking some more about this problem and have come about a different solution.

if you are a mac fan you might remember the harmon kardon speakers that apple sold over a number of years. there main selling point was that they were driven by

a single usb plug. and while researching i came a across a similar cheaper solution that you may be interested in.

i have been searching deal extreme alot recently and found a usb speaker set that could drive the internal speaker through an internal usb port.

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/usb-sound-card-decoding-mp3-music-speaker-51336

the idea would be to take the speaker apart and rewire it so that it drives through the apple speaker(no point making a mount for any other) and is wired to one of the internal usb points. the PCB can be mounted any where else.

 

but it would be high quality audio and could be a proper solution.

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