usb audio iMic playthrough

[Paul Ryan]

I've noticed there are a few audio mavens on this site, so here's one to sink your teeth into...

I just got a Griffin iMic ( http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/imic/ ) for my T42p KXU (bought from Bill ), and have played extensively with trying to play my iPod through it to my T42p's internal speakers. No joy as yet. I'm running XP SP2 and plug-and-play seemed to work perfectly when I plugged in the iMic. I set up the Sounds control panel appropriately I believe, with the iMic USB as the default Sound recording device and the SoundMAX Digital Audio as the default Sound playback device. I say this is likely the right config because I succeed in using the XP Sound Recorder applet to record music playing on the iPod and then play it immediately back through the internal speakers.

But again, for the life of me, I can't get the iMic USB line-in input to map directly to the internal speakers' output so that I can get realtime playback. Bummer! Anyone have an idea on how I might achieve what I'm after? Or is this just the way it is when it comes to USB line-ins?

Thanks & Cheers,
- Paul -

[mdarnton]

You think joy will come from playing any music through the Thinkpad's crummy speakers? Ha.

However, I've noticed that my iMic plays better with my Thinkpad if I go into the device manager and disable SoundMax, before plugging in the iMic. I don't know if that will help you, but it might be worth a try.

[Paul Ryan]

Thanks for the help! I tried disabling as you suggested "SoundMAX Integrated Digital Audio" under "Sound, video and game controllers" in Device Manager (DM). Then I plugged the iMic into the USB port and "USB Audio Device" popped up in DM.

No sound when playing an iPod song, though. I went to the Audio tab on the Sounds and Audio Devices control panel and noticed that both the Sound playback and Sound recording default devices now showed "iMic USB audio system". For "Sound playback," this seemed wrong because in order to send sound through the speakers, "SoundMAX Digital Audio" needs to be selected, it seems. So I went back to DM and reenabled SoundMAX. Now I can hear system sound through the speakers, but not what the iMic is lining in .

Any further ideas? Hopefully there is a way to do this (line in of stereo sound). I'm surprised it's not easier. I guess the Mac is better in this regard.

Cheers,
- Paul -