Does the M Audio Transit really works?

Gee,

With all that sound that you'll have I thought you might have intended to watch DVDs on something like a big Plasma screen.

Peace to you,
C. Livingstone

Great,

I think the the Z-5300 and the Z-5500 have similar features, but he Z-5500 has more watts and other subtle refinements.

Pleace let us all hear how you like the sound from whatever purchase.

Peace to you,
C. Livingstone

Well,

After using both the Sonica Theatre, and now the USB Transit, I can say they both work great for 5.1 surround sound pass-through and other 5-channel sound output.

The Transit driver/preference panel is very sparse compared to the Sonica Theatre, though. But that doesn't really matter to me, as I do sound adjusting on the Dolby decoder and on the iTunes equalizer. And both units seem to provide an equal amount of automatic detection of true Dolby signals at a decoder via DVD movies. The Matrix Reloaded sounds way-cool with either.

I think I like the Optical/Toslink connector and sound transmission on the Transit even better than the Coaxial/RCA cable of the Sonica Theatre when it comes to 5-channel, non-Dolby music, which is what I listen to most. Though, at first, the Toslink cable to the Transit made some of the speakers sound like they had a faulty connection, but it settled down nicely after about 30 seconds. Maybe the fiber optic Toslink connections tend to sensitive upon initial hook-up, I don't know.

It was not possible to keep the Transit and the Sonica Theatre and their drivers properly connected to the Mini at the same time. I wanted to switch between the two connections to see which provides better sound: Optical vs Coaxial.

So, it's only my somewhat subjective opinion, based on memory of about one day of difference, but I think the Transit does sound a little better via its Toslink connection that the Sonica Theatre via its Coaxial connection.

Peace to you all,
C. Livingstone

Well,

After four or five days using the Transit over the Theatre, I'm finding that the Transit driver disappears from the hardware Sound output preference pane. It still shows as a Transit preference in the Other section, though.

So, reinstalling the driver (both 10.3 or 10.4 do work with my 10.3.9 OS) makes everything OK again. But if this persists, I'll certainly want to reurn to using the Sonica Theatre. I should mention that I have the Transit connected through an unpowered USB hub, which is not recommended by M-Audio, but I don't really want to dedicate one of the two Mini USB connections to the Transit. Maybe I'll see if going through a powered hub is better.

Peace to you all,
C. Livingstone

Well,

It looks like this mini-drama is coming to a happy end, as the USB Transit does work fine through a powered USB hub, like the one on my Dell 2005FPW monitor. It just wouldn't allow the driver to survive a Shutdown when on an unpowered hub, but strangely, the driver would survive Restarts.

Interestingly, the Sonica Theatre had no trouble whatsoever on an unpowered IOGear USB hub.

As everyone here knows, with only two USB ports on a Mini, you almost have to figure how to exploit them effeciently. I prefer using an unpowered USB hub or a powered hub that is silent (like the one on the Dell LCD) rather than the one on a MiniStack (which I keep powered down until I need it) which spins a HD at the same time. So, I just used the short USB jumper off of the MiniStack to connect to the Transit to the Dell LCD USB hub x 4, while using Velcro to paste the Transit onto the backside of the LCD, which keep the other inputs handy, too.

Peace to you all,
C. Livingstone

Thanks for the updates!

-Doug