PhilcoDigital Cassette Recorder – Portable Tape Player, Recorder & Cassette to MP3 Converter

Sadly whilst it had power there was no audio. Returned to supplier.

Works great.

l'enregistreur quand on n'écoute l'enregistrement y'a un bruit assez important , et il mange les cassettes il ne sont plus utilisable

I was leery about buying another converter after the Sharper Image unit returned earlier. Furnished USB drive did not fit USB input. I expected mixed reviews. Then I saw the comments by "engineer" and thought it was worth a try. At half the cost of the Sharper Image, why not? His step by step lesson was clear and should be included with every unit sold. I got my 9 precious ancient mix tapes done in no time. Now anytime I need a nostalgia fix, I open one of my 9 files in Music, put on the bluetooth headphones and make everyday tasks more enjoyable. Thank you "engineer". BTW, at 69, not very tech savvy. Not even a smartphone user.

Saw mixed reviews so I took a chance, but the conversion to mp3 via USB did not work. Directions say to start cassette and then push the play/record button on the MP3 to start recording and the green light next to USB buttons will stay lit while recording. The light on mine never aluminates or gives any indication its working. Also, there is no button for record on the USB, it only has a play button. Pushing the USB play button while the cassette is playing only caused the audio to stop, but the cassette kept playing, and then while I pushed stop or play again on the USB the audio would come back, with the cassette playing the whole time and never missing a beat. I followed the directions of both the included manual and the reviewer on amazon that did get it to work and it did not work for me. I don't know if the older units actually had a record/play button for the USB controls or what, but the units now definitely do not and they do not convert to mp3. I should have listened to the latest reviews that advised so.

I've been burned by "Record to USB" devices in the past so I was hesitant to order this. However, taking a chance and using the Instructions given in earlier posts [Robert H.], worth repeating here (below) I was able to easily encode a some audio tapes as mp3 on the USB flash drive (LED indicator on usb drive is highly recommended). The tapes I encoded were from the early 1990's and they still work [I do expect some - especially the consumer grade tapes - to fail when trying to play them now] but the recording levels are pretty high, and Audacity indicates clipping [images attached] but given the choice between a broken 30 year old tape and clipping, I'll take clipping. The dynamic range is only 12khz and based on the precipitous drop in the graph [see image] I think it might be the tape player. My test tape is long lost so can't verify. You cannot control anything about the mp3 output, audio level, bit rate encoding (it is 160kbps, pretty good) and file creation date (always 08/10/2018 1:00AM). Still, given my tapes are nearing the end of their 30 year shelf life this gives me a chance to preserve them and the quality of the algorithm is just fine for me and a lot of the noise is reduced since it is I suspect a direct encoding from the preamp output rather than from a noisy phone jack output [would have to look at the PCB board to confirm].Knowing the short half-life of these type of devices, their tendency to be discontinued after a production run and I have lots of tapes to encode I went ahead and ordered another.Things to note:(1) In my case, pressing STOP on the tape player will cut off power to the USB system (???) which will mean your flash drive will be interrupted and possibly corrupted. Press USB STOP before pressing TAPE STOP on your cassette tape [there are two banks of buttons - one for USB and one for TAPE] and this will close the file on your FAT32 Flash drive avoiding corruption, my file was fine but Windows complained and repaired when this happened for me. I'll probably get tired of watching the tape to stop the USB system, so I'll just deal with the occasional complaint when the tape auto-stops and if I see a file that is unrecoverable I'll update here.(2) The volume knob on the side only affects the playback from the speaker, it does not change the USB recording level so you don't have to audibly listen to the tape play to record it and it doesn't affect the recording volume.(3) It places the files in a directory called AB_REC, this likely means you won't be able to listen them on the tape deck unless you move them out of the AB_REC directory to the root directory, the instructions said something about them not being in directories to play back.Instructions from previous Posts Repeated Here: The instructions with the cassette player/recorder leave much to be desired. It is a matter of trial and error until you get the exact sequence to make a good recording from cassette tape to USB flash drive. I have included the instructions I use myself below for your use in successfully making a cassette-to-USB recording:1) Switch the "USB/Off-Tape" switch to "Off-Tape".2) Place an empty USB flash drive formatted to FAT32 in USB slot. Make sure it is snug.3) Press "Play" for cassette tape to start playing.4) Immediately after that, press the USB "Square" button until the green "Record" light flashes indefinitely. It may take a few tries to get this to happen. If this does not happen, no recording will be made at all.5) Note that the USB flash drive flashes (if so equipped; it is suggested that you get one that does) as it is recording from the cassette tape.6) When done, "Stop" the cassette tape from playing.7) Press the USB "Square" button to stop recording. It will stop flashing.8) The USB flash drive will now have an MP3 recording placed in a directory named "AB_REC" in a file named "AUX0001.MP3". (If you leave this on your USB flash drive, the next recording will automatically advance to AUX0002.MP3, and so on. Very convenient).