As a guitarist, this is going to get a hell of a lot more interesting when Apogee's Jam is released at the end of the month (As is seen in the iPad 2's GB video).
I looked at the Apogee One way back but thought it was a little pricey still, and this Jam at $99 isn’t cheap either. Are you getting genuine quality or is it like getting golden HDMI cables?
Apogee has a good reputation in the music industry, and this is a product where manufacturing quality matters a great deal. Unlike HDMI cables, the 1/4" adapter must perform analog-digital conversion. This is a lossy, signal-altering process, so you want to use the highest quality converter available.
Apogee is known to make some of the best AD/DA converters around. IMO, the Apogee Duet absolutely blows away everything else in its price range.
The difference between the Apogee Jam and something like the iRig is huge. The iRig is very noisy, and doesn't do AD conversion, it just alters the signal level to a mic level signal instead of instrument level. The end result is less than stellar.
The Apogee Jam does AD conversion itself, using Apogee designed converters. I can't speak from experience with the Jam, but if its anything even close to the Duet, the sound quality will be excellent.
The only disappointment for me was that it didn't come with a microphone, like the Apogee One.
