Connecting a MacBook Pro to Philips Home Cinema System

[jojo1904]

Hope someone here will be able to help me out once again with my latest problem. I have a new Macbook Pro which I want to connect up to my Home Cinema system for sound only, don't need it for pictures. The reason being I am having a party and rather than burning the music onto discs I want to be able to hook the Pro up directly to the speakers so that I don't have to keep changing discs so basically just to play i-tunes directly through the speakers.

I already have another Sony laptop which I hooked up via one of those red and black inputs that go into the back of the tv and other end into the headphone socket and that worked fine but I tried it with the Pro yesterday and no sound was coming out so do I need something else? Sorry I'm not very technical!

I seen it mentioned elsewhere that I need an optical cable and something about a toslink but it wasn't very clear how many cables I have to get. Does anyone here know exactly what cable I need to buy and provide a link if possible. So sorry if this has been asked before but I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for in older posts. Hope someone can help soon Thank you if you can!

 

[willj12]

What model is you Philips?

 

[jojo1904]

Not sure of the exact model number as I'm not at home just now but is like this one -Philips HTS3367/05 - DVD Home Cinema System. I popped into the Apple store yesterday and the boy in there told me that the cable with the red and white connectors is the one I need and he didn't know anything about optical, toslink etc so now I'm totally confused. The cable he has told me about I already have and I'm getting no sound out. Should I plug it directly into the home cinema or does it go into the tv because I had it plugged directly into the tv with my old Sony laptop and it worked, just doesn't work with the Mac.

 

[willj12]

Does the 3.5mm to Phono cable (the one you already have) work if you plug it directly into the sony laptop?
Are you sure your plugging it into the headphone socket on your Mac?
Have you turned up to volume on your Mac?

 

[jojo1904]

Yes it works when I plug it into the Sony. I plugged it into the headphone socket of the Mac and the volume was up full. I don't understand it. I really would like for the sound to be from the 5.1 set up for the volume. What I do know is that that the original cable I have wasn't plugged into the home cinema, it was into the tv but the sound came out of the 5.1. Maybe it was just a fluke I got it to work on the Sony. Is there a cable that can plug into the Mac at one end and the other end into the home cinema or is my only choice the 3.5mm phono going into the tv? Why is nothing simple?

 

[willj12]

You should have the phono (red and white) plugged into the audio inputs on the back of the Philips, and the 3.5mm plugged into the headphone socket on the Mac.
Looking at the model you have you could also use a 3.5mm to 3.5mm*cable and plug it into the front of the unit.

 

[jojo1904]

Thanks so much for that. I will give it another try tonight and hopefully it works, otherwise it's going out the window!