I've got a massive load of tapes which I want to convert across to mp3 or whatever and want to know whether this is any good www.johnlewis.com/230430748/Product.aspx or if there's anything on the market that's cheaper & as good.

how obscure are they?

it might be better to just download them, the sound quality of cassettes is poor

If you have any cassette deck with an audio output you can usually plug that into your PC's soundcard. Then get Audacity (which is free) to capture the audio.

it would be a very unwieldy arrangement to connect up my cassette deck with this desktop so I was looking for a more compact solution.

Above suggestions are perfectly good... if you do want a tape-to-PC recorder though, then THIS (http://www.firebox.com/product/1700) is the other one i've seen before.

Incidentally, Firebox.com have the one you found (http://www.firebox.com/product/1849) at Coles, but a little cheaper.

Not used either though - no idea how good/bad they are.


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how obscure are they?

it might be better to just download them, the sound quality of cassettes is poor

dont know - havent looked at them for years. also a lot of interviews I need for reference purposes and far easier to use MP3 data rather than transcribe

Above suggestions are perfectly good... if you do want a tape-to-PC recorder though, then THIS (http://www.firebox.com/product/1700) is the other one i've seen before.

Incidentally, Firebox.com have the one you found (http://www.firebox.com/product/1849) at Coles, but a little cheaper.

Not used either though - no idea how good/bad they are.


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Would these work without having to install them in to a desktop - I really want something that's simple to work with because I dont have the time to play around with installing kit - lack of knowhow and if possible I'd prefer it to operate independently of my desktop.

Would these work without having to install them in to a desktop ... if possible I'd prefer it to operate independently of my desktop.

The "other" one i suggested needs to be put in a spare drive bay on a PC.

The one you suggested (and one that i also linked to on Firebox) connects to the computer by USB, so it doesn't require any real techpertise to setup, but i believe you do need the computer to do the converting to MP3. It isn't a standalone product.


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Above suggestions are perfectly good... if you do want a tape-to-PC recorder though, then THIS (http://www.firebox.com/product/1700) is the other one i've seen before.

Incidentally, Firebox.com have the one you found (http://www.firebox.com/product/1849) at Coles, but a little cheaper.

Not used either though - no idea how good/bad they are.


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Maplin Electronics stock both items too (or did - I bought the one that fits into a 5.25 drive bay:thumbsup:).

When in town this afternoon went in to JLP & Maplins - both selling it for £99. - did a net search and found somewhere in Berks selling it from a shop for £89 - so could try & get JLP to do a price match on that.

I recently copied some tapes onto the computer using the line out from the deck into the line in on the PC. The results were surprisingly good.

I used Audacity http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ to record the tape.

There's loads of cheap decks for sale on ebay http://electronics.search.ebay.co.uk/Cassette-Deck_Cassette-Decks_W0QQ_trksidZm37QQcatrefZC12QQdfspZ32QQfromZR 40QQlredZCassetteQ20DeckQQsacatZ4784

Although I just put some new rubber bands from Bardwells into my 25 year old deck.

K.

Thanks for the ebay link - I'm totally clueless about that entire system and wouldnt know where/how to get started on there. So does anyone have a decent cassette deck that they wouldnt mind putting in my general direction for the express purpose of copying my existing tapes - no copyright issues involved - on to my desktop? Many thanks

I've found it at www.whybuynew.co.uk for even less : £79.95 with a standard warranty or a 3year warranty which they'll refund if there's been no call to repair the kit.

I've now picked up a tape recorder with an headphone outlet and I'd like to know whether there's some suitable cable which has an headphone outlet socket at one end and USB to connect to my desktop on the other?

If you have any cassette deck with an audio output you can usually plug that into your PC's soundcard. Then get Audacity (which is free) to capture the audio.

That is what I would do.

do you know the name of the cable I need?

Just get a 3.5mm <-> 3.5mm jacked audio cable and run it between the tape deck's audio-out and your PC's line-in or microphone.

Then using Audacity (or whatever) record the incoming sound...



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Just get a 3.5mm <-> 3.5mm jacked audio cable and run it between the tape deck's audio-out and your PC's line-in or microphone.

Then using Audacity (or whatever) record the incoming sound...





Thanks everyone that's been a great help.

Thanks for the info i'm using Ion Tape2pc USB Cassette Deck.. its awesome..