The MicPort Pro (MPP) is just a little bigger than the sort of ground lift barrel you might stick on an XLR line to remove buzz, and its mission is simple: It turns any mic into a USB mic, and shows up as an input in your recording software of choice, on Mac or PC, without needing any drivers installed. It’ll lock to your software’s sample rate, up to 96kHz.
The MPP provides phantom power for condenser mics, activated by a pinhead-sized button on the back. I tried it with an Audio-Technica AT4050 and a BLUE 8-Ball (the latter is a phantom-powered dynamic mic) on various sources — detail and clarity weren’t appreciably different from when I ran the same mics off my vintage AKG standalone phantom box.
There are a handful of great USB mics out there, including the BLUE Snowball and MXL 007 (which, unlike the MPP, is stereo), but the MPP is a lot easier to tuck into a laptop bag or “adaptor survival kit” than a microphone, and leaves you ready to record with any mic you encounter. What’s more, I have yet to use a USB mic that has its own headphone out. The jack on the MPP has a hardware volume control, and was more than powerful enough to drive my M-Audio IE-40 ear buds (reviewed Feb. ’08) at more than comfortable levels.
The possible uses are myriad. Podcasting is an obvious one, as is laying down a vocal, guitar, or even acoustic piano part to some multitrack project you’re working on while traveling. Since the 1/8" output monitors a zero-latency bounce-back of the mic and a stereo audio stream from the computer at the same time, the MPP could also work as a no-hassle audio interface for playing soft synths. Best of all, it was trouble-free and performed exactly as advertised, whether I tried it with Logic under Mac OS X, Cubase running on my Windows XP machine, or Sonar running under an unsupported install of Vista on a separate partition of my MacBook Pro. I love it when things just work.
Single-channel mic preamp and USB audio interface.
PROS
True plug-and-play operation. Headphone out monitors a mix of mic signal and stereo main output from computer. Clean sound quality
CONS
USB is only means of power, so you can’t use it as a standalone mic preamp with no computer.
$149.95