Rating: 
Summary: Great tool to digitize music from your tapes & vinyl records
Review: Have been using iMic for the past 3 months. It is a neat product with ease of use. It comes with a CD that has the 'Final Vinyl' software which is very useful for digitizing cassettes and vinyl records. The software extremely easy to use and it has the capability to split the recorded music into multiple tracks. I have ripped more than 15 cassettes with least effort. The quality of recording is very good too.
Here is how I convert the cassettes:
1) Play cassette on a deck
2) Connect the deck's output to iMic through a RCA-to-miniplug converter
3) Connect iMic output to USB port (I am using a Mac)
4) Set the iMic toggle switch to Mic
5) Launch Final Vinyl and set preferences to get audio input from USB port; record in WAVE format
6) Record, cut into tracks (using Cue feature), save into hard disk
7) Import into iTunes, convert to AAC or MP3; delete the WAVE files
8) Set the attributes for the imported tracks and synch with the iPod - I am all set to go!
iMic can also be used to connect audio output from the computer to an external speaker - I haven't explored that feature yet.
Overall: A very neat product and great value for money.
Rating:
Summary: iMic, You Mic, we all scream for...you get it.
Review: Having a Mac without a line-in port was a bit of a shocker, but Griffin's iMic helped out just fine. I have a PowerBook G4 500MHz.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.
Rating: 
Summary: What the...?
Review: I bought this iMic device as a way to input tape to burn CDs on my Powerbook G4. I have spent over eight hours fooling around with the thing to absolutely no avail. The setup information that comes with the product is so terse that it is literally useless. I cannot figure this thing out at all. Step-by-step instructions would be a really good place for the manufacturer of this product to start. All in all, it's been a waste of money and a disappointment.
Rating:
Summary: Very Disappointing
Review: I bought this little gadget primarily because my G4 doesn't have any sort of audio input and I needed to record some spoken word material. It's basically a little round box that plugs into a USB port and has an 1/8" input jack and a 1/8" output jack. There's also a switch to change the input jack from mic to line level input. 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].
Rating:
Summary: Sounds great, easy to use!
Review: I got this as a higher quality alternative to the sound card on my computer at work. Installation is easy, just plug it in and it works. It's noticeably cleaner and has less background noise than the PC's built-in soundcard, and I can use it with my laptop as well. Music sounds awesome through my Sennheiser HD-555's. I haven't tried recording with it yet, but I generally don't do that at work. All in all it's really a great product for the money.
Rating:
Summary: Certainly worth its price
Review: I got this device to record my old cassettes onto my PC's hard drive. Previously I had been just using my sound card. I use a program which creates a graphical representation of the recorded sound. The drop in background noise can be plainly seen. It is even more obvious to my ears. Imic's assertions about noise generated by the electical fields around your sound card are true. My recordings are much better now. Its headphone jack also sounds better than the one on my PC. Frankly, those who say their sound card works just as well probably aren't very demanding listeners.
Rating:
Summary: Do you really need this product?
Review: I have recently purchased this product expecting it to have many new features only to find out that everything it does can be achieved without it. Great for putting old records and casettes on CD but why not just buy a $5 y-adapter and plug it directly into your soundcard's input? I have returned this product as I felt I had been tricked into buying a product that I didn't need.
Rating:
Summary: good insurance for the touring laptop musician!
Review: I recently played in an eastern european country where the soundman destroyed my iMic by plugging it into something it shouldn't have been plugged into (phantom power perhaps?)...while this was an unfortunate event it literally saved me from this damage happening directly to my iBook.
I simply picked up another iMic while in Madrid and had it for the rest of my tour.
I have used iMic's as my main 'audio out' for a year now and swear by them. The sound is decent and they are cheap enough so that if one gets zapped (by an inexperienced sound person) you can go out and buy a replacement somewhat easily and without breaking the bank. They're light and small and fit in a backpack with ease. Yes you could buy an Mbox or a 'pro' USB audio interface which has more bells and whistles but my iMic has served me well by always working when plugged in (i.e., no driver needed for MacOS), being small and portable, and providing a decent sounding signal from my laptop (I usually plug the iMic into 2 DI boxes which helps a lot). I can't say enough good about this little device. It's the best $ I've spent on audio gear. Advice: buy two iMic's when on tour - just in case!
Rating:
Summary: iMic fair for the money, marginally useful
Review: I use the iMic on my G4 Mac, for an extra headphone output. The fidelity is slightly lower than the G4's built-in audio but it's a quick switch from speakers to headphones during auditioning. The latency of the iMic is so long (>100mS) that even single channel recording is practically impossible if you attempt to monitor the signal while recording. For voice recording, it's probably a useful tool.
As a laptop WinXP PC audio device, it's totally useless. The iMic makes sputtering, glitching noises continuously on my 1.6GHz P4 laptop. The response from iMic's tech service was that some laptops have noisy USB ports. I've sucessfully used several other USB audio devices without problems on the same computer. I've tried the iMic on my desktop computer with the same, noisy, results.
I think this is probably an interesting device for Mac hobbiests, but it's useless for semi-pro audio use and totally useless for PC users.
Rating:
Summary: This product is bulls#*t
Review: I would give it zero stars if I could. This product may be good for something, but it certainly does NOT do what its packaging advertises; i.e. "easily turn old records and tapes into MP3s or CDs." If you have a PC, stay far, FAR away from this bogus item. The packaging claims that it is designed for Macs AND PCs, and also claims to include a full version of Final Vinyl Recording Software. Both these statements are *technically* true... what the packaging does NOT say is that Final Vinyl does not WORK on a PC--and the only software included for PCs is 30-day trial software you will eventually need to buy for an extra ~$50. Buying such extra software (not even made by Griffin) may or may not be worth it to you--but this does not change the fact that if you did, it would be THAT ADDITIONAL SOFTWARE allowing you to convert your LPs and tapes into mp3s (together with a good RCA-to-3.5mm cable for your sound card), and NOT this product at all!! As far as converting old LPs, the only thing you can do with this product alone (using the Sound Recorder that YOU ALREADY HAVE preinstalled in Windows) is to record sound bytes NO MORE THAN 60 SECONDS LONG... now tell me how many of the songs on your old LPs and tapes are less than 60 seconds long? So without additional software, from another company, at an additional cost, this product will do absolutely nothing for you (unless you have some burning need for sound bytes under 60 seconds long).
But just to be fair, before returning this product to the store (not Amazon), I e-mailed Griffin to make sure I was not overlooking something, and got a defensive and insulting reply from someone in tech support (we'll call him Wendall), who told me, "I apologize that *you* do not have a full understanding of what our product does." To which I reply, "Well, Wendall, I understand that your product does not do what its packaging claims." Another amusing piece from Wendall was his technical(ity) argument that "Nowhere on the packaging does it say that you do not need any recording software." Is this man a lawyer or what? Okay, Wendall... this is exactly what it says on the packaging: 1) that the product works on PCs and Macs (presumably, the *whole* product--including the enclosed software?); 2) that a full version of Final Vinyl Recording Software is included; and 3) that the PURPOSE of the product is to "easily turn old records and tapes into MP3s or CDs" (for goodness' sakes!). But I guess we are just supposed to guess as to whether 'working on a PC' extends to the included software?? Wendall's take on this was that "we do not say anywhere on our packaging that [Final Vinyl] is either a Mac or PC application." (MY POINT EXACTLY!! Ya don't think that might have been a helpful thing to mention on there somewhere??)
In addition to the misleading packaging, there are next to no setup/installation instructions included (for these, you have to go online--and even then they are very brief, unclearly written, contradictory, and do not answer the questions you would think one would need to ask). One precious design gem is that you have to push the switch to the opposite side from the function you actually want to use; e.g. to enable the microphone, you push it AWAY from the mic symbol... nice, huh? My iMic (otherwise known as the headache of this past weekend) is going right back to the store for a full refund, as is the 3' RCA extension cable I had to buy to hook this useless gadget up in the first place... that is, if Radio Shack will even take it back opened (if not, that is six bucks down the drain, thanks to Griffin).
NUTSHELL: maybe this device improves sound once you have all other not-included required components in place (I wouldn't know, since I was duped into thinking it came with software that would work on my computer--and since it doesn't, I can't use it)--but it *definitely* does NOT serve alone to convert old analog music to CDs, as its packaging implies with a capital I. Consumer, beware!!!!!!
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