How do I connect the Logitech Z906 5.1 speaker system to my MacBook Pro (2018, ports: 4 usb-type c, 1 3.5mm headphone jack) to get full surround sound / best quality sounding music?
Will it just connect into the headphone jack?
1 Answer
This is always a 'fun' task…
You need to be able to go from USB to S/PDIF, then you can connect the S/PDIF output to the Logitech input. The Logitech will then be responsible for 5.1 decoding.
If you try to just run from the headphone jack, you'll only get 2.0 stereo.
The 'fun' part comes when you try to search Amazon or eBay etc for a 'USB 5.1 DAC' - you get a thousand options, none of which will actually do what you want them to. They will either want S/PDIF in, which modern Macs cannot do, they use USB for power but not as a device connection, etc. This makes the search pretty difficult, even for an audio pro.
So, to cut to the chase, these two will do what you need. I've not used either of them, but reviews show specific Mac compliance. Behringer, at least, is a known manufacturer of semi-pro to pro-level audio equipment, multi-platform. The other I don't know at all.
[Amazon links below, one UK, the other US]
Behringer U-CONTROL UCA202 Ultra-Low Latency 2 In/2 Out USB Audio Interface with Digital Output
I'd be inclined to go for the Behringer, just because it's a more identifiable object, with an actual searchable model number. The LiNKFOR above is advertised on Amazon's US site. If I try to search it on the UK site, I get a hundred varieties of not what I want instead.
Searching the Behringer on a well-known pro audio online store finds there are 2 variants, the 202 & the newer 222 [both are very old designs, only good to 16-bit, 48KHz, but it's usually good news if something has been selling for over a decade & still available ;)
https://www.thomann.de/gb/search_dir.html?sw=behringer%20uca&smcs=f2d925_4092
