Griffin Technology iMic USB External Sound Card

I use the iMic with Felt Tip's Sound Studio Pro for Mac OS X. The iMic needs no extra software in OS X, making it quite an easy install. I only used an inexpensive Mic from the place where "we have answers" but it sounded pretty good.

While it may not provide professional quality audio, it at least equals my Macs built-in Mic and provided decent audio to do tape and LP to CD transfers. I recommend it.

Since the microphone I ordered hadn't arrived yet, the first thing I tried was setting it up as an output device. Easy enough to do from the sound control panel under OS X, but playback quality was poor - lots of extraneous clicks and crackles, even when nothing was actually playing. So much for the benefits of off-board digital to audio conversion.

Then the microphone turned up - a fairly cheap Sony mic with mic level output and an 1/8" plug.

Some searching around eventually revealed that the easiest way to test input is through iMovie's ability to record voiceovers. So I click on record, do the usual "Testing testing" and then play it back. Utter silence. Realizing that I hadn't turned the microphone on, I repeat the procedure. That the result was mono didn't really surprise me. That the sound level was so low did - I could barely to get the volume meter to move even when speaking loudly. When I tried the speech recognition features in OS X, I had to literally shout to get it to register sufficient volume.

On top of the low volume the level of hiss was disappointing. I honestly got better quality audio playing with the ultra-cheap microphone and simple mono cassette recorder that I got on my 10th birthday (which was rather a long time ago). So it looks like the analog to digital conversion is about as good as the digital to analog.

Very disappointing - Griffin make some good stuff, this is a waste of [money].