What microphone will work on my MDD?

Question

I have a Dual 867 MDD and have been trying to find a microphone that will work by plugging it in to the Line In jack on the back of the box. Nothing I have bought has worked. Is there something special I need to find? I have tried desktop mics with no luck, and I have bought a mic last night at the Apple Store (a Shure 8900) with a 1/8 inch XLR connector. No luck there, either. It seems there is no mic that works on my machine outside of a USB connection, which I'd rather not use due to quality, but if I have to I will. Any help would be appreciated.
Power Mac Dual 867 MDD, iBook 500, iMac 333   Mac OS X (10.4.5)  

Answer 1

I wish Apple,itself, as well as other Apple/Mac forums would post a standard post about Apple's audio inputs being only a line-in type (audio mixers, tape/CD//video/digital DVD decks, turntables )of signal and not usable for Microphone input.
Apple computers made after the beige line (1997 and later) do not have a microphone input built into them any longer.
Ironic, since Macs are used considerably for recording audio/video and it was a great convenience to have both a line-in and mic level-in inputs.
Not sure why Apple did way with the feature, but is a feature that is still, surely, missed to this day.
If you buy a USB audio adapter, say like a Griffin iMic, you need to use a mic with input jack adapters that will plug in to the iMics 1/8" mic jack.
Headset mics will work, an XLR mic would work if you buy proper jack adapters to plug into the iMics 1/8" mic input jack. These can be found at either Radio Shack or instrument/pro audio music stores
Contrary to your belief, the USB connection will give a cleaner signal/noise ratio than plugging in directly into a jack at the back of a Mac. The reason the signal will be cleaner over USB is that if you plug into an audio jack that isn't of the digital audio input type found on the G5 line, the input jack is not all that well isolated from internal noise and distortions generated from within the Mac,itself.
So, the inputted sound won't be as "clean" as the input will pick up sound/electrical noises/distortions/interference from within the Mac's hardware.
That said, if you want to use a "Pro-level" mic with XLR connectors, you might have to invest in a external digital FW/USB audio input interface box to be able to use any type of Pro/semi-Pro audio equipment.
The interface boxes of my choice would be any made by M-audio.
They aren't cheap, but they are versatile for a lot of differnt types of audio devices and sources.
The plus is that these are digital devices that will generate clean audio over USB/FireWire.