Harman Kardon Soundsticks (USB) not recognized in 10.6.5

Does the machine see them? About This Mac>More Info>USB

Some have reported if you put an external USB powered hub to your Mac then plug the sticks to than and then the speakers are recognized.

However others have reported that Intel drivers were never made for those speakers. Sorry to report this.

These speakers use the *digital out* connection in the sound control panel.
Try plugging them in the USB port on the back of the computer, if you have one.
Other than that I don't have anymore info.
Good Luck

I'm running 10.6.6 and was using Harman Kardon Soundsticks-I (USB) until a few days ago. I had to rearrange my home office and had everything powered down and re-connected - now the speakers are not being recognized.

I tried a couple of different powered USB hubs as well as connecting the speakers' USB connector to my Mac directly. To eliminate other possibilities, I tried my wife's MacBook (also running 10.6.6) as well. Nothing has worked.

Deleting the .plist files in /Library/Preferences/Audio and restarting didn't help either.

Any idea's welcome...

See other discussion about this topic: http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=12979337#12979337

I'm listening to my original HK Sticks & iSub, right now, with intel iMac Core 2 Duo 20"2.0Ghz, 2G Ram, 250GHD, running 10.6.6! Connected via USB port on back of iMac.

You will see in the other discussion, the steps some of us went through, but now all is well & we can again enjoy the stunning sound reproduction, we've missed for too long :]

Keep trying.

That link didn't help since it had no specific remedies suggested, and the only other suggestion that I could find simply said unplug the USB cable and connect again. Doing this hasn't worked.
Other USB devices are working just fine.
Any other ways to revive these USB 1.0 speakers, or suggestions on how to diagnose the speakers? Please point me to other discussions - my search has come up empty-handed.
Many thanks in advance...

Sorry, if that was not clear; the point is, that if you update to 10.6.6, the speaker system may work for you! This simple step has proved successful for others, including myself.

Do you do regular OS X maintenance, using something like Onyx, Macaroni, etc? See too: MacKeeper, & at: MacUpdate.com.

Many of the experts say to Download the 10.6.6 _Combo_ update from Apple, & Not use the Software Update feature for OS updates: see here: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1349

Next, although, it may sound tedious, many Mac sites suggest following these steps for a successful OS update:
-Back Up, Back Up, Back Up
You can choose to Back-up all your data to a Firewire external Hard Drive by using SuperDuper, see here:
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
This way you have a bootable clone of your iMac, rather than one you have to re-build, step by step, via Time Machine. There are several good choices at OWC Mac Sales: http://www.macsales.com
With a bootable external HD you have the ability to start up from it, should anything go wrong with the internal HD on the iMac!

Or, my favorite external HD, choice is the Newer Tech mini-stack, because it gives you more USB & Firewire ports: http://www.newertech.com/products/externalhd.php

You can also choose to use Cloud storage, which, is offered by various companies, see this:
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=cloudstorage+forMac&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

Many people also burn a couple of discs of their most important data, and put the discs in a safe place, like a safe deposit box.

Then:
- Eject external HD & other drives
- Disconnect all your peripherals: printer, external HD, speaker systems, iPod etc.
- Clear your desktop of clutter
- Turn off all apps
- Run the installer
- Re-Start the iMac after installing anything, and then, Repair Permissions via the Disk Utility. No need to Verify Permissions, first. Some may tell you this is old school, but I've found that it helps to keep things sorted, properly.

Let us know if that worked for you.

Hello blueCdreams,

Tried all that, didn't work - I thought - but then I disconnected the Soundsticks this one last time, both power and USB. Then got called away for a several minutes. When I came back and reconnected the Soundsticks, it worked. It's king of frustrating not knowing which step did the trick, but bottom line, I'm back in business.

Thank you very much for the long description. It helped!

So happy to know that you are enjoying the speaker system, again!
It pays to keep trying.
Thank you, for letting us know.

Kate

Hi again, don't be afraid of updating to 10.6.7! My HK iSub & Sound Sticks (USB), are working fine!

Cheers.