How to get Mac OSX Volume controls using optical audio
Ok so the one thing I really missed about my old speaker system (Logitech Z-2300) was that I could control the volume using macs built in volume controls, sadly, with my new speaker system the Logitech Z-5500’s you lose mac’s built in audio control because its optical audio. Up until now I have had to turn the volume either up or down via the remote or control console.
So the question is, how do I restore volume control functionality?, well just recently I discovered a great application called SoundFlower using soundflower it allows you to restore the built in volume control functionality using optical audio. So here is how you do it.
- Download SoundFlower
- Once you have installed it open it up and it should appear in your taskbar then open it and select “Built-in Digital Output” under Soundflower (2ch)
- Open System preferences then go to Sound>Output
- Set your Output to SoundFlower (2ch)
- Enjoy restored optical audio volume control :D.
Note: You might want to set it to open on start up which will make things much easier. I will be putting some more posts up soon as well so stay tuned for more.
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hey man great post will it work on windows ?
@Brad: Hey man thanks, I think windows has it built in not too sure though.
Thank you – but I experience distortion [playing from iTunes 9.01] after mebbe 15 minutes.
Symptoms are similar to this “showstopping”: Sunflower bug-report
http://code.google.com/p/soundflower/issues/detail?id=19
. . . any ideas?
@shoarthiing: Hey man thanks for the comment wow I have never experienced that have you tried uninstalling or upgrading to the latest version?.
. . further to above report: apparently sorted [has worked fine for 60 minutes] by maxing buffersize.
Great hack & thank you – I already had SoundFlower 1.5.1 installed under 10.6.1 using K64 to try to get a bluetooth headset to work with MacSpeech Dictate & this has been an excellent bonus.
This is a superb post, but I was wondering how do I suscribe to the RSS feed?
great tip, thx! :)
I found this blog from Google and just wanted to say thanks for the reviews you posted on this webpage. I am pondering about purchasing one myself.