iKaraoke Product Overview and Description
Posted on 01. Feb, 2009 by Gary in Reviews
Bring the fun of karaoke into your living room with the iKaraoke from Griffin Technology. Designed to interface between most iPods with dock connectors and your home stereo, the iKaraoke works by silencing the lead vocal track of your favorite songs, letting you step up to the mic in your own voice. It’s particularly great for parties, as you aren’t restricted to traditional karaoke favorites but can instead sing along to any song you want. If your iPod has it, you can sing to it. Controlling the selection is easy thanks to the integrated buttons on the microphone, including buttons for pausing, scanning forward or backward, and even temporarily adding the vocals back in to help you find your place. And thanks to the built-in reverb effects, you can make your plain- jane voice sound fresh and intriguing–just like the pros.
To hear to the iKaraoke’s output—your music and your voice, mixed together—you have two options. For the best sound quality, you can connect a standard 1/8-inch (3.5mm) audio cable (not included) from the iKaraoke’s line-out jack, located on its dock-connector plug, to a sound system. Alternatively, you can connect wirelessly, using the iKaraoke’s built-in FM transmitter, to any stereo system with an FM tuner. As with dedicated iPod FM transmitters, you’ll need to find an unused frequency; the iKaraoke transmits between 87.9 and 107.9 MHz. One caveat here: If you use the FM-transmitter option, you’ll want the iKaraoke to be close enough to your tuner/receiver to get a good signal, but you’ll also want your microphone to be far enough away from the speakers to avoid feedback issues. Since the microphone and transmitter are separated by only three feet or so of cable, this can be a challenging proposition, limiting the usefulness of the FM-transmitter feature. Also, although the iKaraoke’s documentation claims stereo FM transmission, I was unable to get anything but a monaural signal using the built-in FM transmitter. In either connection scenario, you shouldn’t expect great sound quality from the included microphone; it’s adequate for casual use but not professional-quality.
The iKaraoke–which hooks up to your iPod with a dock-connecting cable and to your stereo vie either a line-in cable or wirelessly through your FM receiver–works with the following iPods: iPod 4G, iPod 5G with video, iPod nano 1G and 2G, and the iPod mini.
Sends the music from an iPod® to a stereo minus the lead vocals. Pause the music, scan forward or backward, or temporarily add the vocals back. Comes equipped with reverb effects to enhance the singers performance. Connects to stereo via in-line cable or wirelessly through an FM receiver.
What You Get:
iKaraoke microphone, cable with line-out jack, user’s manual.
Warranty: 1-year limited warranty
Article Source: MacWorld Reviews
Simmie
Mar 22nd, 2009
Nice article. I was thinking about buying the iKaraoke but glad I saw your free offer page here: http://x.azjmp.com/2hPMj. I am waiting for mine to show up. They said 2 weeks.