Cassette to MP3 Converter

[Khamon]

There must be twelve-hundred brands of cassette audio tape to MP3 converter boxes. They're not very expensive but I've no idea which brands or models are good, better, terrible, or the absolute worst. Does anybody here have a recommendation?

 

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

All you really need is a simple cable and Audacity:

How to connect your equipment - Audacity Manual

manual.audacityteam.org

 

[Essence Lumin]

All you really need is a simple cable and Audacity:

How to connect your equipment - Audacity Manual

manual.audacityteam.org

That should do it for most pc desktops. It's the round blue jack. Laptops don't usually have a line in jack.

 

[Clara D.]

That should do it for most pc desktops. It's the round blue jack. Laptops don't usually have a line in jack.

For laptops an USB sound card with line-in is needed.

 

[Sid]

Spotify.
I was always preserving my old tapes and cd's and had plans too, to make mp3 of all off them.
Then I saw one of my sisters grandchildren streaming with Spotify. She played every song I requested within seconds.
I gave it a try o my pc too and ....... it is so incredible.
So yeah.... bye bye cassettes, cd's, and mp3 for me. Spotify on pc, tablet and phone. An archive at hand that would make every music station jealous a decade ago.
That's why I advise Spotify.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

There must be twelve-hundred brands of cassette audio tape to MP3 converter boxes. They're not very expensive but I've no idea which brands or models are good, better, terrible, or the absolute worst. Does anybody here have a recommendation?

Yes: get yourself a decent, used cassette deck with Dolby support from the 90s, best would be Dolby S. You should be able to get used, half decent ones for around 100 bucks. Use this then to play back your cassettes, and use your sound card to convert it into WAV. Use Audacity to split up the WAV to your liking, convert it into FLAC for digital archives and later MP3 or whatever for compressed usage.

Why? Because all those devices with builtin MP3 converters just suck.

 

[Essence Lumin]

What Bartholomew said. Though as Sid said, Spotify is a better option if the music you want is on there since the sound quality is most likely better than old cassette tapes. It is free to play any song you want on the desktop. The sound quality is better with a subscription. It can be recorded in an indirect fashion. How to Record from Spotify

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

So, one year someone got me an actual record player system that includes being able to record vinyl or cassette to a cd... then I just took the cd and converted it.

 

[Sid]

What Bartholomew said. Though as Sid said, Spotify is a better option if the music you want is on there since the sound quality is most likely better than old cassette tapes. It is free to play any song you want on the desktop. The sound quality is better with a subscription. It can be recorded in an indirect fashion. How to Record from Spotify

When you take a subscription the possibilities are so diverse, no need to record anything.
You simply download and play anywhere. Even offline.
Prices ain't that steep. Over here € 9.99 for one account and € 14.99 for a family (up to six accounts) a month. First 3 months free (I don't know what they promote in the USA) and you can cancel whenever you like.

Personally I find it one of the best inventions since sliced bread.
I wished I had that in my youth.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

So yeah.... bye bye cassettes, cd's, and mp3 for me. Spotify on pc, tablet and phone. An archive at hand that would make every music station jealous a decade ago.

My wife was doing that with Rhapsody, while I was buying music from iTunes and Amazon and some other service that's since gone out of business that I don't recall the name of. We decided to drop our music accounts to save money and all her music went away. Even the stuff she "downloaded". I just quit buying new music.

 

[Sid]

My wife was doing that with Rhapsody, while I was buying music from iTunes and Amazon and some other service that's since gone out of business that I don't recall the name of. We decided to drop our music accounts to save money and all her music went away. Even the stuff she "downloaded". I just quit buying new music.

Yes, you need to be premium to listen to the downloaded stuff. You don't buy the music, you pay a streaming fee. And Spotify pays the royalties to the record companies and artists.
For € 10 one gets the right to stream whatever you want to hear, as often as you like during a month.
Same principle as Netflix and the lot with films and TV series.

A lot of artists don't even bother to bring out their albums on CD anymore. They only publish it on the streaming service.
The record companies have very little other choice than to use streaming services too. Kids don't have CD players anymore.
They use bluetooth and a soundbar or cordless head device.

I think that streaming services will stay the next decades. That will most likely be sufficient for my lifetime.

 

[Isabeau]

Maybe Khamon wants to save a speech he made in 1978. He worked so hard on it and his parents (so proud!) clapped whole heartedly, and his friends were all there (woohoo! Yay! Huzzah!) One could hear the tremolo in his voice as he thanked everyone. A glorious moment that was fortunately recorded by a thoughtful mate who just happened to have his portable thingamajig with him (nerd). I will preserve this cassette, khamon thought, and one day computers will be in every home and I will hopefully be able to play it anytime I want in the computer cassette deck.

 

[Sid]

Maybe Khamon wants to save a speech he made in 1978. He worked so hard on it and his parents (so proud!) clapped whole heartedly, and his friends were all there (woohoo! Yay! Huzzah!) One could hear the tremolo in his voice as he thanked everyone. A glorious moment that was fortunately recorded by a thoughtful mate who just happened to have his portable thingamajig with him (nerd). I will preserve this cassette, khamon thought, and one day computers will be in every home and I will hopefully be able to play it anytime I want in the computer cassette deck.

Then Spotify is useless.

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

So, one year someone got me an actual record player system that includes being able to record vinyl or cassette to a cd... then I just took the cd and converted it.

I have a turntable with a USB output. I haven't actually tried digitizing any of my records, but it's good to know I can if I ever want to.

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

I think that streaming services will stay the next decades. That will most likely be sufficient for my lifetime.

I've always liked the idea of actually owning stuff like music and such. I've amassed a collection of about six thousand MP3s over the years, that I buy from Google or Amazon, or ripped from my CD collection. I don't really buy CDs anymore.

Before Amazon started selling unprotected MP3's, you used to only be able to buy music in protected .m4p or .wma formats. You were free to play them as often as you wanted, even offline, though you had to "register" your device every so often or the music would stop playing. But if the service where you bought the songs shut down, all your bought music would go bye-bye. For that reason, I never went that route. I guess for that reason, I'm not big on the idea of letting a subscription service replace and become my library.

I do like streaming services like Pandora, iheartradio, and TuneIn though. I like the radio concept where you don't know what's going to play next, and you might discover new songs you really like (and then go purchase off of Amazon). I listen to that a lot.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

What Bartholomew said. Though as Sid said, Spotify is a better option if the music you want is on there since the sound quality is most likely better than old cassette tapes. It is free to play any song you want on the desktop. The sound quality is better with a subscription. It can be recorded in an indirect fashion. How to Record from Spotify

While this is entirely doable, it has a certain drawback: using this method you are recording compressed audio as WAV and re-compress it using most of the times a different algorithm which again throws away audio information. And most probably different audio information compared to the first compress run, so your audio file loses some of its quality. Whether this is hearable or not depends on the quality of the source and the parameters and used algorithm for re-encoding the WAV file.

This approach works best with streaming services which provide lossless compressed audio files. Aside that you can be sure that those files have been watermarked by the streaming services, so they are traceable to their origin service at least.

 

[Sid]

I've always liked the idea of actually owning stuff like music and such. I've amassed a collection of about six thousand MP3s over the years, that I buy from Google or Amazon, or ripped from my CD collection. I don't really buy CDs anymore.

Before Amazon started selling unprotected MP3's, you used to only be able to buy music in protected .m4p or .wma formats. You were free to play them as often as you wanted, even offline, though you had to "register" your device every so often or the music would stop playing. But if the service where you bought the songs shut down, all your bought music would go bye-bye. For that reason, I never went that route. I guess for that reason, I'm not big on the idea of letting a subscription service replace and become my library.

I do like streaming services like Pandora, iheartradio, and TuneIn though. I like the radio concept where you don't know what's going to play next, and you might discover new songs you really like (and then go purchase off of Amazon). I listen to that a lot.

I just checked: 11.000+ mp3's on my HD.
And that is exactly what makes you swim in circles IMHO. I have been listening for years and years to my favorites from the 60s 70s and 80s, straight from my HD. Very little exploring new music.
Now I use Spotify, I feel like I'm in a record shop with the chance to listen to all kinds of music and the shop keeper doesn't mind that I put record after record on his turntable.
I discovered more new to me artists in the last few months then I did in the last decade or so.
One example: Free posted a song from Frazey Ford a few days ago on VVO. I liked it, went to Spotify searched her, read about her, found out she is member of a band too, and now I've listened to a few great albums from her and her band. That would never have happened without a streaming service.

Some streaming services may disappear over the years, but the record industry is far to deep committed to them, that will not stop.
Streaming is the new business model. CD's hardly sell anymore (compared to what it used to be).
"Stereo installation? What's that? Something from dads youth, or grandpa's?"
The youth only streams. So that is the direction things are heading to.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Yes, streaming and vinyl records are the things to stay.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Yes, you need to be premium to listen to the downloaded stuff. You don't buy the music, you pay a streaming fee.

Which is why I buy the music and download it in non-proprietary format, through any of the many services that sell tracks, often directly from the bands themselves so the band gets 100% of the profit instead of the fraction that they receive after filtering it through the streaming service, the labels, and their agents. Streaming is a super bad deal for the artists.

And I don't have to worry about the authentication servers going down like all the people who bought Microsoft "Plays for Sure" tracks. They sure got played.

Before Amazon started selling unprotected MP3's, you used to only be able to buy music in protected .m4p or .wma formats.

Two things there. First, there were companies that sold unprotected files before that but only minor bands because the labels refused to work with them. Second, Apple started selling some unprotected m4a before Amazon's mp3 service started up, but only where they were contractually allowed to. It was the labels who refused to support unprotected sales, and it was only after Apple demonstrated that unprotected sales through iTunes didn't lead to an increase in piracy that they opened up their tracks and started selling through Amazon and later Google.

Microsoft didn't make the same decision, leading to the audioapocalypse I mentioned above.

Oh, third thing, iTunes explicitly let you remove the copy protection from your files by burning to audio CDRW and ripping them back. Nudge nudge wink wink.

 

[Essence Lumin]

While this is entirely doable, it has a certain drawback: using this method you are recording compressed audio as WAV and re-compress it using most of the times a different algorithm which again throws away audio information. And most probably different audio information compared to the first compress run, so your audio file loses some of its quality. Whether this is hearable or not depends on the quality of the source and the parameters and used algorithm for re-encoding the WAV file.

Yes, but this is compared to old cassette tapes which probably don't have good quality.