Hardware required to connect monitors to a Macbook pro

[Joefro]

Sorry for the newbish question, but everytime I search these forums or google for help on this I just find threads where people are looking for suggestions or have some issues with the routing, or maybe getting some buzz, or not really using them for music production but just casual listening.

So my question is, if I was to invest in some beginner studio monitors (the speakers I have been using no longer cut it and headphones are tiresome), what additional hardware would I need to hook it up to my laptop? I know the first question is always budget so I'll just say I'd like to keep the cost of getting the music from the computer to the speakers to under a couple hundred dollars. As an example, KRKs have XLR... so when Ive tried to look things up some people recommend the M-Audio Fast track. Anyways, I got sick of searching through pages and hoped someone here could just answer my actual question. Thanks for your help.

[The Carpet Cleaner]

yes it's called an external audio sound card.

[Cezband]

Or an Audio Interface, it's the same thing.

[Homebelly]

If you got some powered monitors, such as the Alesis M1 Actives, you could just about get by using a "Y" cord with a mini stereo jack on one end splitting into two mono 1/4 inch. Not ideal, but it will save cost in the short term, but it will only work as out put. If you want to run out side audio in to live you will need some kind of USB or FW interface.

[massivesax]

I use an apogee duet with my macbook pro and havent looked back. my advice is to get a quality interface like the apogee since its such a central component of any setup. believe me it'll save you cash in the long run!.. I run quarter inch cables (standard guitar cables) from the outputs of the duet into my KRK rokit 5's. The duet also has four inputs - 2 xlr and 2 quarter jacks but only two can be used at any one time.. the amount of in/outs is obviously down to personal preference but I prefer to have small amount of quality ones rather than a large number of crappy ones. hope this is of some help..

[Joefro]

Thanks for the tip on the Apogee Duet. All of the reviews seem to be great. Again sorry for the beginner question, but I had no idea that the Apogee is essentially an external soundcard. I'm still new to Macs and music production, and I used to build my PCs. To me, the sound card was always just another card (like the video card) that went inside the box when you were building your PC, and definitely didn't have all kinds of inputs and outputs that these Apogees have.

Too bad it only comes with Firewire 400 (or at least I havent found one yet with 800). However... perhaps its worth waiting for the new and improved version coming out this month? Looks sweet and has a lot of new features.

http://www.apogeedigital.com/products/duet2.php#specs

[moonpie]

I may be wrong about this but I dont think theres a single firewire 800 card on the market. Its sorta unneeded for the amount of data transfer audio production needs. The new apogee is back to usb 2.0 which is a little worse than firewire 400 I believe. So goes to show audio cards dont need all that much bandwidth generally. For a firewire 400 device you just need a 400- 800 conversion cable. I got a white belkin one of ebay for $15. Brilliant. If you wait till the new apogee is out, you could grab a 2nd hand apogee 1 for a bargain. Im sure a couple people will be trading up.