Using Optical In as a Mic input on Sharp IMD-R400E

[howardfredrics]

Just bought a Sharp IMD-R400E and to my horror (before it has even arrived) I discovered from reading more info on these boards that the unit doesn't appear to have a Mic input (only the 420 has one). In reading a review of it, however, the reviewer mentions that they discovered in some obscure spot in the manual that one can use the Optical in as a Mic input when in record mode. While that doesn't make much logical sense to me, I nonetheless looked in the manual and there was nothing saying that.

Does anyone know either a hack or else whether or not I can, indeed, use the Optical in on a R400E as a mic in?

If not, does anyone want to by a new R400E from me? I'd sell it for £35 with Sennheiser MX300 earphones.

Cheers,

Howard

[raintheory]

Most likely you could use a preamp and run a mic into the line/optical-in. I don't personally know of any hack that would change the line-in to a mic in off-hand.

[Roamer]

The optical-in should also be a line-in, but as raintheory wrote, you would need some sort of preamp (with analog or optical output), unless you record very loud events.