[HM] Panther/G4 and music files

[Florin Alexander Neumann]

On Friday, Dec 19, 2003, at 00:23 Canada/Eastern, Jack Honeycutt wrote:

> [...] My old Mac computer speakers had RCA jacks that would not plug 
> into the tiny plug in the G4.  The G4 book was no help.  I thought it 
> would tell me which kind of plug, plus the impedance of the input so I 
> could plug my stereo into it.

You are talking about different issues here. (1) Connecting your 
(powered) computer speakers to the G4 (output), and (2) connecting your 
stereo to the Mac (input). The answers are on pg. 17 of your Setup 
Guide.

You don't need to worry about impedance. Unless you have some highly 
exotic devices, it won't be a problem (you only need to worry about 
impedance when connecting speakers to power amplifiers, which is not 
the case here).

(1) There are two audio out jacks, one for the Apple Pro speakers 
(which you don't have), the other for analog audio. The latter is a 
standard 3.5mm mini-jack. All you need is a 3.5mm stereo mini-jack 
(male) to RCA cable, and you're in business. Take care to connect it to 
the audio line out port, not to the Apple speaker mini-jack.

(2) The input is also a 3.5mm stereo mini-jack, so the same kind of 
cable will do, if your stereo has RCA jacks.

Don't buy the cheapest cable you can get, but don't hogwild either. I'd 
expect to pay, say, around USD 5.00 or a little more, for a 6ft cable 
(shielded, gold-plated connectors).

To record audio, you will need an audio editing application. There are 
several that will do the job, but I'd suggest SoundStudio from Felt Tip 
Software (<http://www.felttip.com>). I like its automatic start/stop 
recording feature -- I find it particularly useful when digitizing 
audio tapes.

f