Member Avatar for Sadlander

Hi there
I used to have an old iMac, running Mac OS 9.2. If I wanted to hear what I plugged in the audio input, I went to audio settings and clicked on "play through". Now I have an eMac running Panther (10.3.4) and in audio settings, the option play through doesn't exist. By adjustin the volume, I can see there's something coming in. How can I hear what I plug into the audio input? I used to plug a minidisc and listened to it through the mac speakers. How can I do this with Panther?
Thank you

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by kc0arf

Dani AI

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Good catch — Panther (Mac OS X) does not include the old OS 9 "play‑through" checkbox, so hearing a live input is normally done by an application or a small helper utility rather than a single system checkbox. For device routing and sample‑rate/format checks use the Audio MIDI Setup utility (it’s where macOS exposes device sample rates, channel mapping and aggregate devices).
Audio MIDI Setup — Apple Support. (support.apple.com)

Quick troubleshooting checklist (applies to a MD player into Line In or a guitar into a DAW like Cubase):

  • Confirm cables and levels: a consumer MD/headphone output is a different level/impedance than a microphone input — use a proper stereo minijack cable or an attenuator/DI if you must match mic vs line levels. That prevents distortion or no signal.
    Line vs mic levels — Shure. (shure.com)
  • In System Preferences > Sound (Input) pick the correct input and watch the input meter; if it moves the Mac is seeing the signal. If you see signal but no sound, confirm Output is set to internal speakers or chosen device and that mute is off. Use Audio MIDI Setup to check sample rate (44.1/48 kHz) if apps disagree. (support.apple.com)
  • To monitor a guitar with a DAW: enable the track’s input monitoring, select your interface driver in the DAW, and lower the audio buffer size to reduce monitoring latency — or use your interface’s hardware direct‑monitoring if available. See Steinberg’s latency/buffer guidance for Cubase. (helpcenter.steinberg.de)

Notes for modern readers: if routing input audio between apps is needed, modern loopback drivers (for example BlackHole) let you pipe audio app→app without extra hardware. Also, if hardware audio acts flaky, try the usual Mac firmware reset (reset NVRAM/PRAM) as a troubleshooting step.
BlackHole — GitHub. (github.com)
Reset NVRAM on your Mac — Apple Support. (support.apple.com)

Thanks to for posting the working solution and to for the confirmation — the steps above cover the common gaps readers hit when they can see an input but can’t hear it.

Member Avatar for Sadlander

I've been to a site and downloaded a very lil thing called LineIn
It's less than 400 KB. It works! Now I can plug my minidisc and listen to it through the speakers. even better, I can plug my guitar into the line in, open Cubase, apply a amp simulation plugin and it's like I was using a real amp (well, it's not a Marshall but better than nothing).

Member Avatar for kc0arf

Hello,

Thank you for posting what you found. Do appreciate it.

Christian

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