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A microphone connected to your Mac can be useful for several reasons: recording new alert sounds, using PlainTalk voice commands to control some of the Mac's functions; recording messages for frinds; making a word processor annotations; or for use with dictation software like IBM's ViaVoice or MacSpeech's iListen.

Macs have supported microphone input since 1989, when Apple began shipping and supporting the Apple external mic, which was a round, gray device that plugged into the Mac's microphone port.

In 1991, Apple replaced the original Apple Mic with the Apple PlainTalk Mic, which included a longer male plug and was powered, providing its own pre-amplification. The PlainTalk Mic is a high-quality unit that came bundled with some desktop Macs, and has a gray, trapezoidal-shaped housing with a soft rubber pad on one side to help hold it in place on top of a desktop monitor or other convenient spot. It may also be hand-held.

The downside of the PlainTalk Mic system is that the vast selection of inexpensive computer Mics made for the PC market won't work with PlainTalk Macs, although there is a workaround, which I will get to in a moment.

Some Mac's also have built in Mics -- the LC/Performa 500 and 5000 Series, the iMac, most PowerBooks, and Macs with Apple A/V monitors.

These built-in mics can be convenient, but the ones built into all-in-one Macs especially (PowerBooks iMacs, etc.), inevitably pick up hard drive rumble and cooling fan noise when there is a fan, and are not up to recording high-quality sound at the best of times, and definitely not suited to the job of supporting dictation software.

The most recent Macs have no analog sound-in port, and thus do not support either PlainTalk or standard computer mics (there is a workaround for this too). They require a USB Mike that plugs into the Mac's USB port or a USB hub.

To use any mic with your Mac, you will need to open the sound control panel and select the appropriate type of mic from the list of input sources in the pop-up menu.

And now for those mic compatibility workarounds I mentioned.

Griffin Technology Corporation's $20 NE Mic audio adapter allows Mac users to take advantage of standard, PC-style, non-amplified mics. The NE Mic adapter plugs into the Mas'c analog sound-in port (where equipped).

The NE mic audio adapter acts as a preamplifier which outputs approximately an 100x gain on the normal Mic Level signal produced by unpowered microphones, producing the professional industry standard Line Level signal used by Apple since the Quadra models.

The NE Mic adapter is compatible with all PlainTalk Macs and Mac clones from Power Computing, Motorola, Umax, Marathon, PowerTools, and APS. PowerBooks prior to the 3400 are not supported.

For more information, visit:
http://www.griffintechnology.com/audio/mic_main.html

If you have a very recent Mac with no analog sound-in port, such as the Cube, a PowerBook G4, an iBook, or the latest Power Mac G4 towers, you can still use standard. mic-level input mics instead of USB mics thanks to Griffin's $35 iMic universal audio adapter -- a USB device that allows connection of conventional microphones or other sound input devices with 1/8" miniplugs to any Mac with USB ports. The iMic supports both line and Mic level input as well as line level output for any USB capable computer. Unfortunately, it does not support PlainTalk mics.

System Requirements:
• Macintosh with USB port.
• Mac OS 9.0.4 or greater

For more information, visit:
http://www.griffintechnology.com/audio/imic_main.html

I have both the NE Mic and the iMic, and have found that they work well.