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General discussion

LP to CD Stand Alone Unit

by buyer1 Jun 11, 2009 10:24AM PDT

I have a friend who asked me about the Crosley Music Writer which "converts vinyl to CDs in minutes." She is not computer savy and just wants a unit dedicated to making CDs of her music. I don't see any reviews of the Crosley unit. I do see an Editor's CNET review of the Ion Audio LP2CD Turntable. Does anyone have any experience with the Ion unit or the Crosley unit? Can anyone recommend any other unit?

Discussion is locked

5 Posts
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I've yet to find a Crosley review
by Pepe7 Jun 11, 2009 1:17PM PDT

OTOH, a co-worker did comment that the Ion did fairly well converting some of her old albums from the 70s. She's not particular tech savvy either, so I'd use that as a decent indicator. Here's what about.com says apart from what you've read @ CNET-

http://hometheater.about.com/od/turntables/gr/ionlp2cdshort.htm

Personally, the Crosley looks more like something meant to be a decoration to compliment antiques(!)

hth,
Pedro

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She shouldn't waste her time, money, and efford on this.
by ahtoi Jun 11, 2009 6:56PM PDT

She probably will not like the result. Doesn't she realize vinyl are back again (I saw that on tv the other day).

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I did the project last year.
by Kees Bakker Jun 11, 2009 7:31PM PDT

Now I can play my old vinyl records on my CD-player, on my mp3-player and on my PC.

I didn't buy any special hardware, except a plug and a second hand amplifier (my regular amplifier is in use, of course, and it was a multi-week, even multi-month project). Grammophone connected to amplifier in, line-out connected to line-in of PC, audacity to record to .wav then split to tracks. Burned .wav tracks to audio cd and converted them to mp3 using Windows audio converter (cdex would have worked also).

The time needed for 1 LP:
- play and record: 45 minutes (includes the occasional retry for incorrect volume settings) - you can't play faster than that.
- manually split into tracks (including some editing like removal of some ticks), rename track .wav files to reflect title of each track, type a list of contents, print it to 12cmx12 cm format, burn to CD, convert to mp3, put in correct folder: 1 hour at least.
Somehow, I don't believe this can be done in "minutes".

Kees

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Let's be honest...
by Pepe7 Jun 12, 2009 12:01AM PDT

What you & I, and the more tech savvy crowd can connect and configure to convert our old treasure LPs, the 'grandma' crowd won't touch with a 10 foot pole. I'd consider the Ion since it seems to provide adequate features for someone who's not either an audiophile or particulary PC/software savvy beyond using basic email functions and/or word processing. The outside/case does look cheap, but what's under the hood of the Ion is decent enough. It has a CD worth of flash memory which should do the trick. Some Target stores even have them out on the floor if you ever want to take a peek (like looking at a car crash) Wink

-P

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Yep, that's true, probably.
by Kees Bakker Jun 12, 2009 6:34AM PDT

Those handy all-in-one devices certainly are useful.

But my first point was refuting Ahtoi's remark (quite an exception that I don't agree with him) that it would be a waste of time and money.

Kees

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