Hi all, apologies if this has been asked before but:

I've been given a set of G4 cube speakers - the spherical Harmon Kardon ones - and wanted to use them with my G3 500 iBook. Im aware that these speakers somehow require the G$ cube to function correctly - my guess is theat the G4 cube must have had high-power usb ports or something, that other models lacked. in which case, it should be a simple matter of wiring an exteral power supply to the usb interface/amp module to provide the power required.

has anyone done this? or have any info that would help me - specs on the G4 cube's usb ports or anything?

surely this is something many people would have wanted to try...

cheers,

ben

Those speakers also came with iMacs. They run off of a digital amplifier in the Mac, which later G4s also had built in. Did you get the amplifier box with it? Its possible to get them to work, they are just speakers after all. You could use a seperate amp.
-maestro

In my expeience they will work but the volume will be very low.

If I remember correctly the USB only pushes 5 volts. Adding more would blow the port or even the logicboard. How does these speakers work? do they use the power from the USB and connect to the speaker port or does it all go though the USB?

Too bad you came by these and not the H/K SoundSticks (and not the SoundSticks II), because they're USB, but are also powered by a unit in the subwoofer. You might, if you got this subwoofer, be able to wire the tweeters to it somehow.

i believe the Cube's USB ports are special 10 watt ports... You can (at your own risk) use them on other computers but the volume will be lower. The Apple Pro speakers are different than the Cube's speakers in the fact that the imac's had an their own propriatary connection and no inline amplifier like the cube's. i don't know how you will get the extra power to the Cube speaker amp. but it would be cool. they are nice speakers.

also the Cube speakers when used would make the Cube run hotter. this might also be the case with your ibook. especially since you would also be putting heavier strain on the ibook's USB ports as far as power draw might be concerned.

macDeviant

ok everybody is right...they require more power than standard USB provides. Griffin invented iFire. Since Firewire provides the nescessary amount of power, the adapter plugs into your computers firewire port and the audio in port. Then you plug the USB apple speakers into the iFire. Funny thing is you can also power it with the old iPods too! Then you have some working Apple Pro Speakers!

http://store.yahoo.com/lovemacs/ifire.html

Post edited by: krusher117, at: 2005/12/24 05:14

Wow... Cool! I knew about iFire, but never thought about using it to use the Pro Speakers as iPod speakers... Any model through the Photo, except for some minis, would support it! Again, wow...

krusher117 wrote:



not to steal your thunder, krusher, but the ifire is incompatible with the USB Cube speakers. It was made for the imac g4 Pro speakers, similar in apperance, very different speakers. Newbies over at http://www.cubeowner.com get this mixed up quite a bit. I just don't wan to see anybody get these two different products confused here too. :S

Actually the speakers are the same. Its just the break out box thats different. Hack the wires and wire them out to a break out box that converts the Apple pro speaker to normal speaker out puts. Plug you wires to those regular speakers outputs. Not sure who makes it, but when I find the link, Ill post it. Try google.
-maestro