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I am getting a radio soon and would much rather have the sound using the speakers on my iMac than its own. The radio has a speaker jack that claims it outputs more than 2.4w of power. I am not too familiar with how much power these audio lines normally use so I was wondering if I can plug the radio right into my input jack or if I need to buy a special piece that allows me to do this safely?

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Similar Question: superuser.com/questions/353221/… – RedGrittyBrick Nov 13 '11 at 12:32
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In general, if you're going to feed a speaker output into a microphone input, you should buy a "line-in adapter" that attenuates the signal. This protects the input and gives you better quality sound.

In practice feeding the signal in directly "probably" won't damage the microphone input, so long as you don't crank the volume all the way up. 2.4w is not that much.

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Line in adapter? Do you mean a 3.5mm-3.5mm cable? If not, could ya link me? Thanks Dan! – kylehotchkiss Nov 13 '11 at 5:22
A "line in adapter" includes an attenuator (a pair of resistors). Something like this. – DanH Nov 13 '11 at 5:31
A more professional term would be a DI unit/box - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DI_unit – MaQleod Nov 13 '11 at 6:33
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