Audio cassette to PC convertor

[Gav]

AIUI there are two main methds to convert an audio cassette to a PC:

(1) line out on cassette player ---->
(perhaps isolating transformer) --->
line in on PC

(2) line out on cassette player --->
analog to digital convertor --->
USB port on PC

Does the USB way in method (2) inherently produce a higher (or lower)
quality result?

Are there any basic convertors for method (2) you would recommend? Price
is important.

 

[Steve Walker]

AIUI there are two main methds to convert an audio cassette to a PC:

(1) line out on cassette player ---->
(perhaps isolating transformer) --->
line in on PC

(2) line out on cassette player --->
analog to digital convertor --->
USB port on PC

Does the USB way in method (2) inherently produce a higher (or lower)
quality result?

Are there any basic convertors for method (2) you would recommend? Price
is important.

If price is important, use method 1 - a 3.5mm to 3.5mm mini-phono cable will
cost about a quid, and the quality won't be any worse given that the source
is a cassette.

 

[Nil]

It seems unreasonable to me that one method would /inherently/ be
better than the other. It all should depend on the quality of the
A2D converter -- either in a sound card or standalone.

This is the correct answer.

 

[Rob Morley]

If price is important, use method 1 - a 3.5mm to 3.5mm mini-phono
cable

3.5mm is mini jack - phono is altogether different.

 

[Bernard Peek]

AIUI there are two main methds to convert an audio cassette to a PC:

(1) line out on cassette player ---->
(perhaps isolating transformer) --->
line in on PC

(2) line out on cassette player --->
analog to digital convertor --->
USB port on PC

Does the USB way in method (2) inherently produce a higher (or lower)
quality result?

No, because the limiting factor will be the quality of the recording on
the tape. Any additional errors are likely to be negligible in comparison.

 

[Paul]

Has anyone here used one of these? I'm seriously tempted to get one
just to save space but only if the sound quality is OK.


I'd image the USB version would precompess the audio so theoretically
the quality would be poorer. Whether it would be noticeable is
another matter.

The Plusdeck2c is reviewed here.

http://www.thinkcomputers.org/old/index.php?x=reviews&id=403&page=1

It appears to be a cassette player powered by a Molex hard drive power
cable. The cassette player fits within a drive bay. A ribbon cable goes
from the back of the cassette player, to a PCI slot cover card. The slot
cover card has audio jacks and what looks like a nine pin RS232 port (for
control). The slot cover card gets signals from inside the computer case,
so they can be connected to the outside.

You then plug 1/8" audio cables into that slot cover card, and run the
signals to the regular sound jacks on the back of the computer. That
means, you *already* need a sound card on the PC, to use the Plusdeck2c.
All the Plusdeck2c is doing for you, is giving you a cassette player
that fits within the computer. All the rest of the sound hardware is
provided by you. It appears to be intended to play back cassette
tapes, but doesn't provide the ability to write them. The included
software would be how format conversion is achieved - it isn't
done in hardware. So their software is what makes an MP3 for you.

You can see the cable routing here. This shows the three audio
cables and one RS232 cable. Your computer needs an RS232 serial
port, in order to control the cassette deck.

http://www.thinkcomputers.org/reviews/Plusdeck2c/tn_tape (9).JPG

The product is Korean, plusdeck.com .

The 1.3MB user manual is here. The colors of the audio cables
correspond to Line-In (for recording the cassette), Line-out (to
drive the headphone jack on the front of the cassette deck), and
Microphone-in (to accept a microphone plugged into the front of
the cassette deck). The latter two of those cables are optional
and you don't have to connect them up. Only the Line-In cable
is needed to record cassettes, plus the RS232 serial port cable
to control the deck. Not all modern PCs still have an RS232 serial
port on them, so you'd want to take care of that detail first.

http://plusdeck.co.kr/plusdeck2C_UserInstruction_EN.pdf

"Frequency response 20-18000 Hz
SNR 55dB"

If you don't have sound input jacks on your computer already,
those would be extra.

*******

Even the cheapest USB or PCI sound recording devices, are going
to be good enough to record from that cassette deck. Newegg
has a $13 USB one based on the CM108 and that has 16 bit converters.
And an $8 PCI sound card based on the CM8738 also has 16 bit
converters. (I'm using that chip right now, and have been recording
TV with it.) Those two solutions are comparable to one another.
If you spend enough money, you get a 24 bit converter instead.
At some point, adding extra bits is a waste, as the noise floor
of the card prevents you from getting a benefit from them.

One question I'd have about that cassette deck, is whether it
would handle Dolby noise reduction. I don't remember
the details, but I thought commercial cassettes had various
flavours of noise reduction, just to make playback more
fun.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_Noise_Reduction

Paul

 

[Rob Morley]

The Plusdeck2c is reviewed here.

http://www.thinkcomputers.org/old/index.php?x=reviews&id=403&page=1

Neat idea for geeks, but the only thing that sets it apart from an old
car cassette player mounted in/on your case[1] is that you get a
transport control widget on your desktop. Now as you're presumably
only going to rip each cassette once, and you have to access the deck
to load it, there's not much point in having that remote control. Plus
the car player might have Dolby, which the Plusdeck doesn't (although
you can overcome that in software anyway).


[1] with attenuation/impedance matching - don't feed the output
straight into the line-in on the sound card.

 

[Paul]

Unless I am misunderstanding things doesn't this device mean you need
to route cables from inside the case to outside? This seems really
daft to me and probably and indication that not much care was taken in
its design.

Most of my tapes were not recorded using DNR.

The interior to exterior routing, is because the deck is mounted in the tray,
and they need to get to the jacks on the sound card.

They could have, if they wanted to, thrown in their own sound card, one
with internal jacks. They could also have included an RS232 chip if they
wanted. Then, the cabling could have all stayed inside. Their solution
is daft, but cheap. I've seen other products that insist on routing cables out
the back of the PC, so this isn't the first to do it. I've even seen a
PCI slot cover, that routes 120VAC inside the computer. So all sorts of
stuff goes through plates like that.

Paul

 

[Rob Morley]

They could have, if they wanted to, thrown in their own sound card,
one with internal jacks.

Or the connector to use internal aux audio headers, which don't really
get used for optical drives any more.

They could also have included an RS232 chip
if they wanted.

Or used a USB controller? It does seem rather old tech for a fairly
recent product.