2.1 Speakers + TV + Macbook = No Sound - Help!

[airwind]

Hello Audioholics, newbie here. Couldn't find an answer via Google so I was led here and am seeing some assistance.

I recently purchased some 2.1 speakers (Cyber Acoustics, CA-3602) for some "better" sound than my Mac's internal speakers. The speaker's control pod only has one "main" input source: a 3.5mm male jack - that goes into my Mac. I had the bright idea to try and hook my TV audio to my speakers to the "Aux In" port via 3.5mm male jack from my TV to the female 3.5mm port on my control pod. But unfortunately due to "limitations" of the system (confirmed from CA), if a audio source is connected to the Auxiliary female port, the main male input (connected to my Mac) will not work. Meaning, only one source can work at one time, and the Auxiliary female port overrides the "main" 3.5mm male jack.

Is anyone familiar to turn the one main input - male 3.5mm jack - into a female, and allowing more than one input so I can connect my Mac and TV to my speaker system and hear both simultaneously?

Troubleshooting: I had an idea - I have one of these 3.5mm male to dual female adaptors plugged it into the "Aux In" port on my speakers and connected my TV and Mac to it to have both connected but only audio from my Mac will be heard and any audio from my TV will be extremely low to nothing at all (at full volume) - but when I removed 3.5mm jack from my Mac's headphone port, the audio from my TV is heard.

I'm sure its an easy answer, but I have no idea. Any help would be appreciated!

 

[Adam]

Welcome to the forum!

To make sure that we're working to solve the right problem, are you saying that you want to listen to audio from the TV and from the Mac at the same time? I'll admit, you have me curious as to why.

I would have tried the same troubleshooting step that you did. I believe that the reason the Mac is so much louder is because the line-level signal coming from it is much stronger than the TV. Are you using a headphone jack on the TV, or left/right audio out jacks? I imagine that you did this, but since you didn't mention it I'll ask - when you had both connected using the y-cable, did you try turning the volume on the Mac down to see if you could get both to sound about the same?

 

[TLS Guy]

Hello Audioholics, newbie here. Couldn't find an answer via Google so I was led here and am seeing some assistance.

I recently purchased some 2.1 speakers (Cyber Acoustics, CA-3602) for some "better" sound than my Mac's internal speakers. The speaker's control pod only has one "main" input source: a 3.5mm male jack - that goes into my Mac. I had the bright idea to try and hook my TV audio to my speakers to the "Aux In" port via 3.5mm male jack from my TV to the female 3.5mm port on my control pod. But unfortunately due to "limitations" of the system (confirmed from CA), if a audio source is connected to the Auxiliary female port, the main male input (connected to my Mac) will not work. Meaning, only one source can work at one time, and the Auxiliary female port overrides the "main" 3.5mm male jack.

Is anyone familiar to turn the one main input - male 3.5mm jack - into a female, and allowing more than one input so I can connect my Mac and TV to my speaker system and hear both simultaneously?

Troubleshooting: I had an idea - I have one of these 3.5mm male to dual female adaptors plugged it into the "Aux In" port on my speakers and connected my TV and Mac to it to have both connected but only audio from my Mac will be heard and any audio from my TV will be extremely low to nothing at all (at full volume) - but when I removed 3.5mm jack from my Mac's headphone port, the audio from my TV is heard.

I'm sure its an easy answer, but I have no idea. Any help would be appreciated!

I have no idea why you want to listen to the audio from your TV and Mac simultaneously, that sounds awful.

The reason your TV drops signal when you connect both until you remove the Mac, is that the Mac has the lower output impedance and excessively loads the output of the TV.

You can't connect two outputs together.

There is no simple solution, but if your really do want to do this, and I can't think of any good reason why off hand, then you need a mixer to blend the signals. There is not other way, other than designing and building buffer amps.

 

[airwind]

Adam: Thanks for the welcome! Haha, yes I would like to listen to my TV and Mac at the same time. Although I admit it sounds weird on paper, but I do not intend to have audio playing from both at the same time. I would like to avoid removing/connecting cables depending on use

Since my TV only has optical digital audio out, I have the Fii0 D3 Audio Converter + RCA to 3.5mm male jack to connect the TV.

For your question about the Mac volume, I did indeed try reducing the volume output from my Mac. Unfortunately, the sound from the TV is really - I mean really low. Anything from my Mac is heard perfectly.

TLS guy: I admit, it sounded like a good idea at the time lol. But since I already had purchased the audio converter, I wanted to get this all to work.

After further research and input from you guys, I can see that I do need a mixer. Do any of you guys have any recommendations on a consumer level audio mixer?

Just for info, my future plans were to purchase an Apple Airport Express using AirPlay. Connected to it would be (now) a mixer with my TV and speaker system. So I can have audio from my Mac routed wirelessly if I ever wanted to play anything (video editing, YouTube, Garageband, etc.) without having to deal with cables.

 

[Grador]

Given how expensive those speakers are you'd probably be better off just getting a second set, or a better set of speakers with multiple inputs.

Alternatively, since you don't want to play the TV and computer simultaneously you could use something like this Amazon.com: TCC TC-716 6-Way Stereo Source Selector; BLACK VERSION: Electronics