Do iMacs have sound cards?

They have sound chipsets on the logicboard. Depending on your model iMac, you either have one that is hooked up to a minijack Toslink, or a minijack standard analog stereo connector, or a digital audio for Apple's Pro Speakers (now discontinued), as well as internal speaker support which all iMacs have.

Please identify your Mac model here:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301724

Depends on the iMac model and the ports available on the iMac. Please identify your iMac, so we can tell you which of these are compatible:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=506627&tstart=0

There are in fact three different kinds of minijacks speakers come with. So knowing the iMac type, and the minijack the speakers have is important.

For more clarity:

type soundcard compatible speakers are compatible with the Griffin Firewave on iMacs with Firewire. That includes all iMac G4, iMac G5, Intel iMacs, and iMac G3s in Apple's article 58207 that have Firewire.

5.1 speakers systems that come with a SPDIF port are compatible with
http://www.monstercable.com/computer/productPageComputer.asp?pin=2809

and the minijack found on the back of iMac G5s and iMac Intel Core Macs.

Speakers that can work with:

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2102970

Will work wtih any iMac. Radio Shack offers RCA adapters to that cable that will work with practically any two-channel speaker system.

No problem this is an iMac, you don't need anything extra. I listen to iTunes all the time while running all the other Application's. Except of course while watching a DVD movie, iMovieHD (homemovie's) or QuickTime Video the sound is then used there.

17" iMac Intel Core Duo 1.5GB Ram Mac OS X (10.4.8) Maxtor 300GB FireWire 2G Nano

For crying out loud, all computers have sound cards. How else does sound come out of computers?

In the case of the iMacs, they have speakers built in, though not killer speakers, they're manageable. If you need anything better, get any pair of computer speakers and plug them into the headphone jack. You don't need to buy an external sound card.

You will need a powered speaker set up, as you will be using the mini headphone jack for external's. I have this Creative Inspire external speaker set, here is the link so you can look at the spec's.
http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=4&subcategory=27&product=1 4096

Dennis

17" iMac Intel Core Duo 1.5GB Ram Mac OS X (10.4.8) Maxtor 300GB FireWire 2G Nano

iMacs do not have soundcards. The picture below was taken form a 20" Intel iMac, you can see the audio ports (circled in red) are directly connected to the motherboard.



although this does suck for audiophiles, you can purchase USB 5.1 audio cards

No the spec's realy don't tell what's inside!

Audio
Built-in stereo speakers
17-inch and 20-inch models
Internal 12-watt digital amplifier
24-inch model
Internal 24-watt digital amplifier
Headphone/optical digital audio output (minijack)
Audio line in/optical digital audio input (minijack)
Built-in microphone

I was just using my set up as an example, so you might compare it to your current external set up.

This description was taken from the iMac spec page on the Apple. com web site.... Is this not quite clear enough?..."Audio Built-in stereo speakers, built-in microphone, optical digital audio output/headphone out, optical digital audio input/audio line in"

The iMac 24" models support both stereo speakers, and speakers based on 5.1 system if they use SPDIF like the Logitech Z-680 without any additional soundcard. If you want the center, left, right configuration like is found on many PC soundcards, that's where you need the Firewave from Griffin.

Don't read those specs, read these specs:

http://www.apple.com/imac/specs.html

That's where all the nitty details are given on specs.