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Convert audio cassette to MP3

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Audio and Electronics' started by David, Mar 26, 2006.

  1. David

    David Member

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    I just bought a 2006 Toyota Prius. Instead of a cassette player it has an aux-in jack. After buying a $4 male-to-male jack and a cable from Radio Shack I can play MP3s from my Treo 650 through my cars stereo. The sound is good and I control what plays from the Treo.

    The difficulty is a I have bunch of books-on-tape that I like to listen to on long drives. I can certainly use an old portable cassette player to input the cassettes into my computer and convert to MP3 but would like to find an easier more automated and ideally faster way of accomplishing this. Any suggestions?

    Thank you.
     
    #1 David, Mar 26, 2006
  2. finman

    finman Senior Member

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    portable "walk-man" cassette player from the 80s?
     
    #2 finman, Mar 26, 2006
  3. Armature

    Armature New Member

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    Use your portable tape player with the aux-in jack.

    David
     
    #3 Armature, Mar 26, 2006
  4. naterprius

    naterprius Senior Member

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    #4 naterprius, Mar 26, 2006
  5. petteri

    petteri New Member

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    What is the advantage of this over just plugging in you existing tape deck into the line-in on your sound card? I'd really hate to eat up a drive bay for this. The software for this is the key here! If there is any sort of auto track feature or sound mixing/balancing then that is what you are really paying for.
     
    #5 petteri, Mar 26, 2006
  6. David

    David Member

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    Well, I splurged and ordered one of the Digi Decks. It looks like the software/harware combination will ease the process of converting the tapes since it will do both sides. Thanks for the tip.
     
    #6 David, Mar 26, 2006
  7. khoult

    khoult New Member

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    I've converted tapes to MP3 by just hooking the cassette player to the audio-in jack on my PC, and running a sound recorder something like this freeware:

    http://www.snapfiles.com/get/audacity.html

    From there you can either burn a MP3 CD or an audio CD.
     
    #7 khoult, Mar 27, 2006
  8. naterprius

    naterprius Senior Member

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    Please report back once you try it out and let us know if you like it.

    Nate
     
    #8 naterprius, Mar 27, 2006
  9. naterprius

    naterprius Senior Member

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    Oh, and Dave, this is the coolest SD card available for the Treo 650:

    http://www.sandisk.com/Products/Default.aspx?CatID=1119

    It has a built-in USB port, no reader required. I have the 1 GB version for my Treo 650. One caveat, when it's new, it is kind of a tight fit in the Treo. The sticker will eventually wear and it will slide in and out nicely.

    Nate
     
    #9 naterprius, Mar 27, 2006
  10. keydiver

    keydiver New Member

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    I do the same thing, using software I downloaded from Blaze Audio:
    Rip-Edit-Burn
    I just plugged by spare home cassette deck into the AUX Input jack of my PC sound card, and record away! B) The software lets you edit the wav files, and then burn them as MP3 files to a CD. The quality is very good, but depends of course on how good the source tape and the home cassette deck are. ;)
     
    #10 keydiver, Mar 27, 2006
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