Griffin Technology iMic USB External Sound Card

by Griffin Technology

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00006BALQ
• Item model number: 2020-IMIC
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (91 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #41,376 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: June 21, 2002

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

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.

Design and Setup
The iMic looks like a compact version of the sleek power adapters that come with iBooks. Its major shortcoming from a design standpoint is the length of its cable, which measures a mere foot-and-a-half long. Users who plug the device into their computers' rear USB ports had better hope that their other peripherals have far longer cables; otherwise, they'll be huddling close to their hard drives while recording. Installation was effortless, however--simply plug the iMic into a USB port and you're ready to go. The iMic is both Mac and PC compatible, though owners of pre-OS X and pre-Windows XP operating systems may not be able to enjoy its full array of features. For instance, the iMic only acts as a recording device for Windows 98 SE and 2000 systems, and is unable to output music. Some users have also reported the need to update their firmware in order for the iMic to work properly.

The iMic comes with a quick start manual, but it's fairly minimal, which could make it a bit confusing to operate for people who don't have recording experience. Fortunately, Griffin's web site (www.griffintechnology.com) spells out the instructions in relatively good detail. Mac users should note that they'll need to fiddle with the Speech and Sound Preference panels and enable the "iMic USB audio system" before use, while PC users will need to select the iMic under the Sounds and Audio Devices control panel.

Features and Performance
We tested the iMic in two different applications--converting a cassette to MP3 and recording a voice with an external three-pin microphone using Griffin's GarageBand microphone cable. The cassette conversion went smoothly. After connecting the tape deck through the RCA-to-miniplug adapter and flipping the toggle switch to the line-level setting, we used the Final Vinyl software to convert the files to WAV format. Once the files were recorded, it was simple to import them to iTunes and convert them to MP3 or AAC files. Given the symbiotic relationship between iTunes and the iPod, it was also a snap to sync the files for portable play. The audio quality was quite good for a low-priced sound card--the iMic offers 24-bit audio processing, though most computers support a maximum of 16-bit sampling at this juncture--and thus was restricted more by the quality of the initial cassette than the iMic itself. However, the increased capacity bodes well for future upgrades.

The device also recorded the microphone audio quite easily, this time into the GarageBand application for the Mac. The recording quality in this application was also good--no background noise or static. As with the cassette example, the quality will likely depend more on the source equipment and software than on the iMic. When we were finished, it was simple to transfer the recording to other multimedia applications, such as iMovie. One source of confusion, however, was the toggle switch, which we had to move to the microphone setting (which includes a preamp) for proper operation. The problem is that the toggle switch is counter-intuitively labeled--the microphone setting is under the speaker icon rather than microphone icon--so it's easy to set it incorrectly and wonder why the input isn't working.

On the whole, though, the iMic is a very good value for the price, and is a great addition for Mac users who miss the once-standard microphone ports. Serious musicians and other high-end users should probably invest in professional equipment, but the rest of us will have a ball. --Rivers Janssen

Pros

• Great for a variety of uses, from recording voice and instruments to converting LPs and cassettes to digital formats
• Good audio quality at an affordable price
• Plugs conveniently into USB port and sets up easily
• Compatible with both Macs and PCs

Cons

• No user's manual and slim quick start manual
• Confusing switch between mic and line-level settings
• Cord is relatively short at 1.5 feet

What's in the Box
iMic adapter, RCA-to-miniplug cord, software CD-ROM, quick start manual.

Product Description

Audio connections are just a USB port away The iMic universal audio adapter is a USB device that adds a stereo input and output to your Mac or PC. This allows the connection of virtually any microphone or sound input device to a Mac or PC with a USB port. The iMic supports both line and Mic level input as well as line level output for any USB capable computer. By using USB, the iMic provides significantly superior audio input and output performance over built in audio. The iMic is a must have product for people who are serious about getting high quality audio in or out of their computers. iMic Audio input: 1/8" stereo line/mic-level minijack Audio output: 1/8" stereo line-level minijack System requirements: Mac: Mac OS 9.1 or greater, or OS X, USB port. PC: Win XP, USB port Works with most music & audio applications available Hardware control: toggle switch for mic/line setting Dimensions: .84"H x 2.5" Diameter Cable Length: 18" Manufacturer Warranty: 1 year

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

82 of 82 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good for specific uses; not for others., April 12, 2005

By 

Solarbird (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Griffin Technology iMic USB External Sound Card (Personal Computers)

First, let's describe what this is: it's a sound card. That means it offers analogue to digital and digital to analogue conversion on the device itself, and is capable of shuffling that data over a USB connection to your computer. It is _not_ a cable adaptor, which confused one previous reviewer; it is _not_ a "live" device - you can't use it as part of a studio monitor, which confused another. It is similarly _not_ a format converter. However, it _is_ useful for bringing in analogue sound to your Macintosh (or, in theory, PC).

The hardware itself is pretty impressive for the price, when dealing with line-level input. Drum captures are surprisingly crisp; piano capture is surprisingly lush; vocals are strong. It is _not_ professional equipment, but it's also not $300; the value for money is quite high. The input fidelity is significantly better than my Powerbook's onboard A/D converter, and the other, more expensive, card I have in our PC tower system.

On the downside, its analogue grounding and shielding is - perhaps unsurprisingly, given that it's a USB device - weak. In an RF-noisy area, you will probably pick up some noise that you won't hear on your stereo. I suspect this is where some complaints about hum have come from. I was able to create this problem at home, by playing with it. Insuring best possible ground connections on all other cabling, and adding some local shielding, can solve this problem if you live in an RF-noisy area. Similarly, turning off buzz-creating noise sources nearby - such as small motors, dimmer-switch controlled lighting, and so on - will help. This is not a disqualifying issue, but is one that should be taken into consideration.

On the other hand, the phono level pre-preamplification is simply poor - noisy and just kind of unpleasant - and the RIAA equalisation preset is iffy. If you want to use this device with a turntable, use your own first stage amplification to get it up to line level. (If you aren't in a band or an audiophile, what that means is: plug it into your stereo's "tape out" sockets instead of connecting your turntable directly to it.) Given that microphone input is similar, you'll probably want to use a powered microphone, or route your passive microphone through other equipment, before digitising.

As for the software: "Final vinyl" is mostly disappointing. As a data-capturing utility, it's adequate; the ability to set basic equalisation at capture time is useful and works well. It can be successfully used to extract individual tracks from a longer capture.

But as an editor, it is woefully inadequate. Even the simple track-creating task it was built for is laden with unpleasant surprises. Clearly, they did not throw significant testing resources at the software; it suffers badly from the "if you don't use it the exactly same way we use it, random things happen" problem often seen in products from smaller software houses.

_Many_ seemingly-reasonable actions put it into an unrecoverably discombobulated state. For example, trying to add a cue marker to the left of an existing cue marker confuses it irredeemably; you will probably end up with random cue mark placing, and when you try to start deleting cues, end up with a negative number of tracks. It is also easy to reorder random segments of sound in such a way that it does not, in fact, appear in the editor, but does appear in playback; I haven't found the pattern to that problem yet, but it is recurring and may involve selecting ranges for post-capture eq adjustment.

Most of these problems require you to revert to original capture data and flush the undo buffer, which means lost work. However, if you can figure out how _they_ use it, I suspect it works pretty well; but I shouldn't have to work constantly to figure out whether I'm going to trash all my work by moving a cue marker the wrong way, or whether trying to bring down levels at one point in a sample is going to reorder or copy other parts of the sample at random.

In summary: very good value for dollar hardware at line input level; less so for direct turntable input; and if you're thinking about buying it mostly for the software, get something else. I wanted it for the hardware, and as such, I'm pleased.

66 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great integration with OS X!, December 15, 2002

By 

neurotome "neurotome" (San Luis Obispo, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Griffin Technology iMic USB External Sound Card (Personal Computers)

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.

This device works best when plugged into its own USB port. I had trouble when using it on USB busses that already had a lot of activity.

It fails to get 5 stars because the cable is too short - only about 18 inches - not really even long enough to make it around to the front of the computer. Also, there's an occasional (once a week) bug/problem with sound degradation after the computer's been asleep. Unplugging and re-plugging in the peripheral fixes this problem, but it'd be nice if it wasn't there at all.

In short, if you need average quality mic-level sound input into your Mac, and price is important to you, this is the peripheral you need!

52 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Documentation aside, a pleasure to use., December 15, 2003

By 

Aaron Barnhart "tvbarn.com" (Kansas City) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Griffin Technology iMic USB External Sound Card (Personal Computers)

I'm with the reviewers who were put off by the lack of documentation that comes with the iMic. On the other hand, the Griffin Technology Web site is terrific and full of up-to-date information and how-to's for iMic users. For instance, there's a freeware product just out called Final Vinyl that I wouldn't have known about if I only had printed instructions to go on.

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.