For those of you who have not tried it yet, you should definitely hook up your 990 to your computer via the USB connection. On a whim, I signed up for Rhapsody's free music service (25 free plays per month plus a decent amount of radio stations). The sound is really pretty good, and this has caused me to now seriously consider the unlimited download services.

For those of you who are using the USB, what has been your experience and how are you utilizing this option?

I was thinking of using the USb to connect ot my MAC mini. Does the usb cord give you surround sound output from your PC or is it just stereo? Any idea if it would from the MACmini? How does it install?

I'm trying to figure a way to ouptu dolby or DTS from the mac mini. There are some USB audio deviecs I've found that have optical, but no surround capabilty. I wonder if USB is the answeR??!?

I did this with Yahoo's LaunchCast and thought it sounded pretty bad. Even on the high quality setting the audio wash washy. Could just be LaunchCast as I know they run it through some kind of filtering. This is nothing bad with the 990, LaunchCast sounds like crap on my Klipsch Promedia 2.1 speakers hooked to my desktop as well. It is great for light background music, but nothing I would want to listen seriously to. I need to get my Sirius radio the wife got me for Xmas activated and see if it is any better.

There's nothing to install for 990 USB support with macs. It's plug and play, the 990 shows up as an external sound card.

Oops, forgot to add, the 990 does not support surround sound over USB at all, so it's really a moot point on mac support.

On PC's it appears as a USB audio device (sort of like a giant sound card) when you connect it. According to the 990's manual, the USB port is limited to PCM stereo only. I'd be curious to know if OSX also recognizes it as an audio device (it would seem likely), but you'd still have the PCM stereo limitation.

For a Mac Mini setup, you might look at the M-Audio Transit . It connects to the USB output of a PC or Mac and provides an optical connection that will pass Dolby Digital and DTS, and it costs about $80 .

Just a note... I have the Transit and it does not support DTS. I haven't tried to hook up my G5 Power Mac to determine if this is a limitation of the mini/transit or if it's a limitation of the Apple DVD player and libraries. I seem to remember that it's a problem with the DVD player and not a driver issue.

Also, VLC no longer supports DTS due to patent infringement/legal issues. I don't believe there is any way to get DTS support on the Mac. Which stinks, because I have several movies ripped to my mini with DTS soundtracks.