Do you sing in the shower or in your car? If so you'll probably enjoy iKaraoke from Griffin Technologies, a clever but ultimately flawed device that combines a microphone with digital signal processing so you can sing along with your favorite songs as they play on your iPod.

The microphone has its own play/pause, forward, and reverse buttons so you can control your iPod right from the mic. iKaraoke has a built-in FM transmitter as well as a 3.5mm Line Out jack, so it's easy to listen to your performance through most home stereo systems.

When iKaraoke is connected to your iPod (it supports any iPod with a dock connector), a new set of menus appear on the iPod screen. These menus let you select an FM frequency, set the level of the music (low, medium, high, or off) in relation to your voice, adjust the built-in reverb effect (low, medium, high, or off), and select FM or line out for output. There's also a "vocals" on/off switch that ostensibly reduces the volume of the lead vocal without affecting the instruments or backing vocals.

iKaraoke would rock if everything worked well, but almost every aspect of iKaraoke is flawed in some way. For example, the FM transmitter is flaky. Sometimes it wouldn't work at all; other times it would only work if I moved my iPod within inches of my FM receiver. But when I did that, the microphone was too close to the speakers, which resulted in horrible feedback.

While the line out jack worked better than the FM transmitter, I was disappointed to discover that there was no audio cable in the box. And unfortunately, the only cables I had here were too short, resulting in frequent feedback.

Furthermore, while the vocal reduction circuitry does a decent job of suppressing the lead vocal on most songs, more often than not it also makes the instruments and backing vocals sound really muddy.

Another issue is that iKaraoke is powered by your iPod battery. That's nice, but you'll soon discover that your iPod battery runs down a lot faster when you use iKaraoke.

The Bottom Line

iKaraoke is flawed in many ways but if you like to sing along with recorded music you'll probably enjoy using it in spite of its issues.

You may be asking yourself why I would give iKaraoke a 3-microphone rating if it's as flawed as I say. The answer is that in spite of all the issues iKaraoke was still fun to use. The reverb effect makes your voice sound kind of professional, and while the backing tracks often sound muddy, they still sound good enough to sing along with.