Computer audio capability

Factual Questions
1

Since buying my G5 Mac, I’ve begun downloading the best of my CD collection into iTunes, to play back through HK SoundSticks speakers. I never gave any thought to the wattage of these speakers and the output power of the computer. All I know is that this setup works.

Now I want to add a second set of speakers for the next room, running cables through a small hole in the wall. I sometimes work back-and-forth between the two rooms, so would need to have both sets of speakers on at the same time. But I’m concerned about the computer’s ability to handle this. The only info on my sound cards (one for each hard drive) is: bit depth, bit width, channels, mixable and sample rates. Nothing about wattage. So how do I know how much power it’s capable of sustaining?

Also: is it possible to have the second set of speakers connected to the second hard drive, yet playing from the same iTunes tracks?

2

The output from the G5 is a line-level output. As such, wattage is not relevent as it’s not meant to be plugged directly into speakers. The SoundSticks are powered speakers, that is to say, the amplifier is built in. Speakers sold as computer speakers are all powered, unlike those you would plug into a stereo system.

You’ll need to get an audio splitter, to send the single line out signal to your two speaker pairs.

I’m not clear as to what the two audio interfaces have to do with the hard drives – the two are unrelated devices. Under Core Audio, you cannot have an application access two audio interfaces at the same time, so no, you cannot have a single track play from two sound cards.