Tape cassette to CD via computer

I would skip CDs as well. We're not even ordering new vehicles anymore with CD players as it is a $200 extra option and takes up most of the storage compartment under the center seat on new pickups. Not very many people even use CDs anymore with Sat radio, cell phones and MP3 players available.

You could just skip the CD era and use a device that will play mp3. I'd probably just buy the same albums on CD and rip them so I could play them on an iPod, computer, or tablet.

I think that anyone worried about the qualify of sound after a tape to computer conversion doesn't have much to worry about. The sound on take was never that great in the first place.
I converter all my books on tape where quality of sound isn't an issue and it took a long time, 30 minutes each side. My wife has some LP records that she wants me to convert but I told her, just buy new ones.

I think the issue is not so much the audio quality, but having accessible hardware to play it back. How many of us carry around a cassette player anymore? Having it on a CD or MP3 file becomes more of a necessity if anything else these days.

I second using Audacity. But I also second what mrkoje said, weigh it out. Its a time consuming process. I have digitized many LPs, and they turned out great because I used to dub them to cassette when I was young and never played the actual LPs again. Most of my LPs are pretty pristine so they are worth digitizing. But cassettes are another matter. Unless they were high end metal tapes to begin with and are played back on a player with the right NR circuitry, I think you'll be disappointed in the results. I have never been happy with the few I tried, and that's with a good cassette deck.

Unless you have a serious amount of cassette tapes that you want to save I would just spend the $21 bucks it costs to get the gizmo and download the high quality versions of your favorite songs from iTunes or Amazon or whatever else websites are out there.

The RIP from cassette to CD will not make it sound any better and will be very very time consuming (The whole tape has to play to RIP it to the computer and multiply that by how many tapes you have)

If you have a decent cassette player, than it can be as simple as purchasing an appropiate cable to run the cassette deck to your computer's sound card input, such as this cable:





You can use Windows built in sound recorder, but a better choice would be to download the freeware, open source Audacity. I've also seen second hand high end cassette decks at thrift stores such as Goodwill from about $10.-$15.





Another low-fi option would be something similar to what robsouth mentioned, a USB Portable Cassette to MP3 Converter for about $21.

You should be able to use any cassette player connected to the line in on your computer. Play the tape (song by song) and record then with sound recorder, then convert the .wav to .mp3 and burn the .mp3's to CD.