Tape Deck for your PC

[spinlps]

Saw this in a PC mag at work yesterday...

http://www.plusdeck.com

Check out the Plusdeck2. They claim to be able to play from and record to analog tapes (no metal tapes though?!?) directly through your PC. Sounds interesting... I've been looking for a way to transfer all those live tapes from the trading days!

[Dmitry]

Seems kinda backwards. On a similar note, I've seen a mini-disc drive for pcs which I also thought was of limited use.

I'd say you're better off just hooking up your existing tape deck to your pc. Especially if it's a decent Nakamichi machine. Just buy a very good sound card with superior-quality a/d converter and you'll have much better digitized tapes [and Lps].

That's what I'm planing to do.

[spinlps]

Yeah, I hear ya... no Nak here, just a Sony ES series deck. As I mentioned before, I use the Maudio 2496 card with my hifi with great success to record LP's, never really tried the tape route though. Thought it might be of interest to the non-speciality or on-board sound card crowd.

[AmirBagachelles]

pssst - dunno if you're heard Plusdesk, but cassettes really suck, nobody with 1/2 a brain should spend another dollar on the format. You don't need a high end cassette deck, certainly not today. I would be surprised if any dual capstan deck built twenty years ago can still play well and not add noise. I'm using a D-3 to get the rest of my stash onto CDR before they completely disintegrate, that's all I can hope for. I like the soundcard idea though. When I see folks touting Naks I have to wonder, I believe those were the most over-engineered, over-priced and tempermental rigs ever conceived. In the late 70s I thought Yamaha had much better sounding decks. In the mid-80s when Denon came along with solid, neutral sound $250-400 decks, as opposed to $400-1000 Naks that were forever needing service, Nakamichi's business was never the same.