Ion Audio LP2CD Turntable

>> Donald: Hey, I'm Donald Bell, Senior Editor for Digital Audio and MP3 and today we're taking a first look at the Ion LP2 CD turntable. This is a $400.00 turntable that plays records and CD's and also records to CD or to your computer. You've seen USB decks like this before from Ion and a lot cheaper too but what makes the LP2 CD unique is that you can archive your vinyl to CD without using a computer as the middle man. First let's look at the turntable it's a 3 speed belt-drive system with a metal platter and a standard tone arm with an off the shelf cartridge. You also get a nice hinge dust cover, a slip mat, a 45 record adapter and USB, RCA and power cables. The back of the deck includes stereo input and output, a USB jack and a standard 3 prong power connection. On the bottom you've got these nice cushion sound isolating feet which is something you won't find on cheaper models. Still the turntable itself is mostly plastic and only worth paying about 100 bucks for. It's the recording capabilities and the convenience that makes this a $400.00 system. On the front you've got a CDR drive that can both play and record CD's you can record from the turntable, the AUX input or you can even record from other CD's. You don't record directly to CD, however, which is a good thing because it would suck if you had to throw out every CD that you recorded just because the record skipped. Instead the turntable includes 700MB of built-in memory that let's you temporarily store and edit your recordings before you burn them to CD. If you want to make a copy of a CD you can rip the whole disk or just the songs you want to the internal memory and then burn them to a blank disk. It's the same process for burning records to CD in this case I've got the original soundtrack Enter the Dragon. When you hit record you're recording the album to the internal memory and then dumping the memory over to CD. By default the LP to CD will automatically split your recording into separate tracks when it detects silences but you can override the setting and edit tracks manually if you prefer. After the song is recorded you can listen back to them using the control strip, you can edit them and crop out silences, delete tracks and even rearrange the song order. When you're ready to burn them to CD you just hit the Burn CD button, put in a blank disk and let the LP2 CD do its thing. You also get some basic bundle software for recording to your computer over USB which is probably the better way to go if you're just trying to get songs on to your iPod. I'm Donald Bell and that was a first look at the Ion LP2 CD turntable. ^E00:02:21