I have for years used a first generaton set of USB iSub and Soundsticks connected to Macs of one sort or another (staring with a G4 Cube when it was more or less new, then an IMac G5, then a 24" iMac C2D, and now an i7 2012 iMac) in the house. Currently, they sound about as great as ever. However, they have proven to be frustrating because the USB connection is dropped several times a week, e.g., when the machine goes to sleep, so that it can no longer communicate with the speakers. They do not appear, for instance, in the Sound Panel.
The only remedy for this has been to unplug the USB cable that I had running from a USB hub from the machine, reconnect, go to the System Preferences/Sound, and set the Soundsticks as the output device again. Disonnecting the Soundsticks from the hub was not enough to make this work; USB had to be disconnected from the iMac itself. There has been a little raindance also sometimes needed, a specific sequence of powering up and connecting in order for the iMac in some situations to recognize the speakers again. All told, it has been frustrating and I've been afraid that I'd wear out the USB port through these repeated rituals.
I've been trying to figure out a way around this problem, searching for help with Terminal commands, etc., to no avail. Then last weekend, I decided to connect my OWC Thunderbolt Dock to the iMac, as it was not being used much elsewhere, and plug all my peripherals into it instead. Well, the upshot of that was that the USB iSub/Soundsticks problem seems to have been resolved. All week, the speakers have been recognized without interruption, there has been no need to reset anything, and all is well.
A further benefit of use of this marvelous OWC device is that the bug in Apple's FireWire software that causes FireWire drives to refuse to go to sleep in later systems (the drive does not not always refuse to sleep but often does so) seems also to have been by-passed. I have an external FireWire drive that I use for media files that would not uncommonly need to be ejected for it to go to sleep. Plugged into OWC's Thunderbolt Dock, by contrast, the FireWire drive behaves as nature intended, going to sleep with the machine.
There are numerous discussions on the web among people trying to make the first generation iSub/ Soundsticks work properly with a modern Mac. Use of a Thunderbolt Dock seems to be one solution.
Huzzah!
The only remedy for this has been to unplug the USB cable that I had running from a USB hub from the machine, reconnect, go to the System Preferences/Sound, and set the Soundsticks as the output device again. Disonnecting the Soundsticks from the hub was not enough to make this work; USB had to be disconnected from the iMac itself. There has been a little raindance also sometimes needed, a specific sequence of powering up and connecting in order for the iMac in some situations to recognize the speakers again. All told, it has been frustrating and I've been afraid that I'd wear out the USB port through these repeated rituals.
I've been trying to figure out a way around this problem, searching for help with Terminal commands, etc., to no avail. Then last weekend, I decided to connect my OWC Thunderbolt Dock to the iMac, as it was not being used much elsewhere, and plug all my peripherals into it instead. Well, the upshot of that was that the USB iSub/Soundsticks problem seems to have been resolved. All week, the speakers have been recognized without interruption, there has been no need to reset anything, and all is well.
A further benefit of use of this marvelous OWC device is that the bug in Apple's FireWire software that causes FireWire drives to refuse to go to sleep in later systems (the drive does not not always refuse to sleep but often does so) seems also to have been by-passed. I have an external FireWire drive that I use for media files that would not uncommonly need to be ejected for it to go to sleep. Plugged into OWC's Thunderbolt Dock, by contrast, the FireWire drive behaves as nature intended, going to sleep with the machine.
There are numerous discussions on the web among people trying to make the first generation iSub/ Soundsticks work properly with a modern Mac. Use of a Thunderbolt Dock seems to be one solution.
Huzzah!
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