Hi Scott, The iMic is used with the mini because the mini has no audio line-in port. The iBook laptop also needs an iMic to get recorded signals into the computer. However, even machines that have a separate audio line-in port, like the PowerBook, might benefit from using a USB connection to input the signal. Using the USB port may give better isolation from noise pickup.
This type of device does well with simple recording, but if you want to do more complicated things like adding a voiceover dubbing track to something you're recording, you'd have to also deal with the "lag" in matching your track due to latency in the system. You might need a more expensive input device. Still, its surprising how well you can do, even recording from something like a cheap Sony walkman cassette player into your Mac with and iMic and sound capture program. Another bonus is that you don't need to download any drivers. And the hardware setup for Sound input source will automatically switch over to USB input from the iMic when one of these devices is attached -- you don't have to go into the System Configuration menus and make all the changes for selected input device. You can also send output from your machine (edited, dubbed, generated by garage band, taken from the infamous iTunes library, etc.) to an external audio source using the iMic's USB interface. Hope this helps. Gordon can probably give you a better explanation. Cheers, Esther On Thursday, January 12, 2006, at 03:41PM, Scott Howell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >You know I was curious about the IMic. The description I read on >Apples site didn't really give me a sense of its ability other than >it was like the patchbay from hell. >I got the impression it was merely for connecting recordplayers, tape >decks, and the like to the Mac, but is that all it does? I thought it >might give you additional controls so any info you care to share >would be appreciated. > >Scott
