soundbar no sound on my M1 Mac mini

yes, you're quite correct, Bairn76, the headphone port/jack cannot be used with Toslink on the Apple Silicon Macs

it USED to have a mini Toslink socket buried in there somewhere , on older models of Mac, and a mini Toslink digital optical plug would fit in there, and work quite nicely for digital optical audio/sound output, but that feature has been gone for some time now... you can get a USB or USB-C external sound card that could work.... here are the rough audio specs for your year of Mac Mini (the 2020 one) : Mac mini (M1, 2020) - Technical specifications (CA)

and, alas, as you can see, you get a headphone jack/socket, HDMI socket/port that supports multichannel audio out and that's about it...it also has two USB-A ports, 2 Thunderbolt 3 USB4 ports which support USB 3.1 Gen 2 and Thunderbolt 3.... so that's USB-C..... those are your options.... I'd go with a USB-A external sound card which supports Macs and offers Optical digital audio out of some kind, analog output, either via 3.5 mm headphone socket/jack or 2 RCA sockets or jacks.... This Amazon US link has something that should fit the bill well enough:

https://www.amazon.com/ASHATA-Converter-Digital-Windows-Windows2000/dp/B07Z3TQKFF/ref=sr_1_20?crid=2I3BSHPB58QP3&keywords=USB+external+sound+card&qid=1696110969&sprefix=usb+external+sound+card%2Caps%2C177&sr=8-20

copy and paste the whole link (the URL) into a new browser window and it should open in Amazon's website, says it works with Windows and Mac OS X OK, at least for stereo use.....

John B

Hi, Bairn76, you'd have to see if your Mac Mini supports HDMI audio output.... If you hold down the "Option" key on your keyboard and click on your speaker icon on the top menu, on your monitor, right side, just before the time display, it'll show you all available audio/sound outputs and inputs... otherwise go to "Audio MIDI setup" which is in your utilities folder and create an audio output over HDMI.....what year of manufacture is your Mac Mini ?, you should be able to find this out by going to "About this Mac" and it'll tell you....A model number would be nice as well, so that I (and we ) can sorta help you out....it starts with "A" then has 4 numbers/digits after that....you can post either the year of manufacture or the model number here. Please do not post serial numbers here....have you tried going to system preferences then Effects/Alerts, then output, then play Effect/Alert through.....and there should be a number of choices there....I don't think your Mac mini has a built in speaker, but I could be wrong....It has an Optical Digital (toslink) out, so you could try that....you'd have to set the sound output to Optical Digital (Toslink) and try playing an Effect/Alert....you should hear sound from the device you've connected....for the Toslink to 3.5 mm, is it a straight cable, or is it a digital audio to analog converter/adapter..with either 3.5mm headphone or speaker output or 2 RCA jacks..... .. you'd be wanting the second one for it to work successfully....

John B

[Edited by Moderator]

HDMI cannot be used for pure audio without video. It requires the soundbar to be connected to a compatible TV or to an HDMI display.

Either or, not both. If you want both, you’ll need to buy a TV that supports eARC.

😉👍

Since the soundbar has a TOSLINK input, here is a pretty cheap solution:

Cubilux USB A to TOSLINK

or just search "USB to optical audio" on Amazon for a very wide variety of adapters.