Manufacturers have made it increasingly easy to connect a host of FireWire and USB devices to your computer, but often at the expense of the microphone port and other jacks. Enter the Griffin iMic audio adapter, an affordable USB device that lets users connect microphones, speakers, cassette decks, and virtually any other audio source to their Macs and PCs for recording or playback. Among its many uses are recording voices or instruments for home movies, turning your laptop into a DJ studio, or converting your LPs and cassettes into MP3s or CDs. The iMic includes two 1/8-inch mini-jack ports (one mic/line-level input and one speaker output), along with an RCA-to-miniplug adapter for connecting audio components such as phonographs. Thanks to a small toggle switch on the unit, the microphone input can handle both mic-level recording and line-level signals. In addition, the iMic works with most recording software, and even comes with a CD-ROM loaded with Final Vinyl for Macintosh (for recording LPs), along with trial versions of several other applications.
Technical Details
* USB audio adapter for connecting microphones, phonographs, cassette decks, and other sources to your computer
* Records voices or instruments or converts LPs and cassettes to MP3s and CDs
* 1/8-inch input jack offers both mic and line-level signals
* 1/8-inch output jack connects to headphones or speakers for playback
* Easy to set up and use; compatible with USB-equipped Macs and PCs
Customer feedback:
1. This device is a totally plug-n-play way of adding sound input capability to your Mac. It plugs into a spare USB port and accepts a mini mono mic/line input. G4 Macs, among others, come with a line in audio jack, but they have no mic input and can’t amplify a mic enough to make it audible. So, if you want to use an unpowered mic for direct sound-in to your mac, this is a cost-effective way to go!
The driver came installed with Jaguar, so there was no installing to do – I plugged it into the USB port and the Mac OS immediately recognized it. It shows up in the ‘Sound’ pane of System Preferences and is easy to select. There’s a handy level meter there, so you can twiddle the amplification just right. I’ve used it for a couple months to DJ my live internet radio broadcast, which goes out over the “airwaves” as a 56K internet stream. I’m using it with a cheap Radio Shack combo phones/mic headset (nine bucks), and the sound quality is totally adequate. I’d agree with the manufacturer, though, that you oughtn’t expect to use this for studio-quality sound; although I can’t discern any distortion or hiss from the peripheral over my cheap speakers or headphones.
2. I’ve dubbed bunches of LPs and tapes using this thing. I don’t need it now that my new eMac has an audio-in port, but on my old iBook it’s been great. Plugs right into the USB port and gives me just the right amount of gain for recording my old Lps and tapes. Using Sound Studio, all I do is hit record, clean it up afterward, mark the points between songs and then throw the whole kadoodle into iTunes. Couldn’t be simpler. Uses very little power so I can plug it into my keyboard. The only caution I would give is not to let the computer sleep while using iMic — waking it seems to create a little buzz in the recording.