Can a y-cable move sound in both directions?

Question

I'm transfering my vinyl to digital and have the program but need to do the cabling. My laptop has no direct inline jack, just a microphone jack. Can I use the y-cable (2 rca plugs, 1 mini plug) that's designed to play music from your ipod through your stereo? or does the sound only travel in the one direction. Can I even use the microphone jack to do the transfer? I have a desktop with an inline jack in the back, but it's a real pain to pull out the tower to get to the jack.

(Note: I prepared this question earlier and I'm sure I hit the submit button to post it, but it isn't showing up on my profile, so sorry if you see this twice. )

Answer 1

What Bob R is saying is correct, it probably will work but the audio may become distorted or just "sound wrong". An important side note though: Most microphone inputs on computers are mono only - so even if you can get it to sound ok, you won't get stereo sound.

Answer 2

No... You cant use the microphone jack to do the transfer.

Answer 3

You can use the mic jack on the laptop if you get an attenuator cable.  It changes line level to mic level.  Radio Shack used to carry a little adapter that did that, but maybe no longer.  Here is one I found online:

http://www.microphones.com/prodpage.cfm?...

Answer 4

The cable will work both ways however, the "Mic In" operates at a different level than the "Line In" as it has preamps and different voltage controlls. Your player is set to operate at "Line Out." If you plug the "line out" into "mic in," your audio signal will be distorted and blown out, or very quite...

You can give it a test run and see if the outcome is acceptable to you, it won't damage anything.