How do I connect active monitor speakers?

I'm here looking for advice myself. Don't know why no one responded.

I have been very happy with the Alesis iO interface. It has two 1/4 out

jacks in the back, as well as Midi in and thru and a spidif loop.

You probably have taken care of your needs by now, being as it is

December. I'm a fan of Alesis equipment, in general.

According to the specs on this page, the Alesis Monitor One Mk2's are unpowered. That means you need an amp to use them with anything. How big an amp depends on what you want to use them for, but typically it would be 20 watts or more per channel for a critical use like studio or reference monitoring. You could get by with less power if you just use them for casual listening in a small-ish room but they will not sound their best at higher volumes.

There are several ways to hook the amp up to your Mac. You can use the headphone/line out jack in two ways: with an adaptor cable with an 1/8" stereo plug on one end (for the Mac) & plugs on the other end that match the inputs on your amp. If you have an amp with an optical input, you can use an optical cable similar to this one.

For a higher quality setup, you can use an interface like the one Islandlady mentioned. Many companies make these things, in every imaginable price range. Do an Internet search on "Audio interface" to get an idea of what is available.

If you tell us more about how you intend to use your speakers & what (if any) other sound equipment you have available we may be able to give you some more specific recommendations.

Saying that you use them for editing using Final Cut Pro doesn't give me much to work with. 😕

Do you want or need professional quality audio (both for monitoring & for recording)? Do you already have any other audio gear you can or will use with it (like a home entertainment amp)? Is this for personal/hobby or commercial use? Very roughly, how big is your budget for additional gear? What country or general geographic location are you in? What kind of audio material do you work with the most (music, dialog, effects, etc.)? Do you need everything to be portable/compact/battery-powered, etc.?

There are so many different possibilities that without knowing more I don't think I can offer any other advice.

You made a good choice with the Presonus. It's the same thing as the

Alesis iO.

JMA, you have to specify Alesis M1 "Active" MKII Biamplified Reference

Monitor if those are the ones you want. Active means amplified. If you have no

onboard amp, you'll know it. I'd prefer left and right 1/4" out jacks to a single

headphone out. You get full signal per channel and still get to plug in phones.

What happened was that the computer manufacturers originally wanted to

build preamps and digital converters into the laptops. The recorder manufacturers

raised a ruckus & put it to them, are you building computers or audio recorders?

because if you are building audio recorders, here's a long list of regulations

you will have to comply with, just as we do. It didn't take much convincing.

The result is that we need an audio interface to do serious recording.

It converts analog to digital and pre amps the signal,as far as I know.

I'm no engineer.

ed_shaw wrote:

What happened was that the computer manufacturers originally wanted to

build preamps and digital converters into the laptops. The recorder manufacturers

raised a ruckus & put it to them, are you building computers or audio recorders?

because if you are building audio recorders, here's a long list of regulations

you will have to comply with, just as we do. It didn't take much convincing.

The result is that we need an audio interface to do serious recording.

That isn't true. In the first place, every computer with a headphone jack has a digital to analog (D/A) converter built into it & every one with a mic or line input has an analog to digital (A/D) one. If it has a mic or mic input, it also has a preamp.

The main reason for not putting high quality mic preamps & A/D or D/A converters into computers is technical: it is almost impossible for such circuits to avoid amplifying digital noise when they are in close proximity to a lot of digital computer circuitry.

I would love some help here too! I have the Alesis Monitor One Mk2 speakers and have no idea how to set them up to my macbook. Anyone have any ideas??? Do I need an amp to do this?

I haven't purchased anything yet (other than the speakers), so any advice on cables would be appreciated. I have absolutely nothing!

Thanks R C-R - this is helpful

I'm using my studio monitors for editing using Final Cut Pro.

Any other advice would be much appreciated!

Thanks for clearing that up. Must have been an urban legend.