24 from Thatcham, Berkshire, UK. Please take time to read my Riu Negril (Jamaica) review. Catch yo...
24 from Thatcham, Berkshire, UK. Please take time to read my Riu Negril (Jamaica) review. Catch you soon Scott :)
Member since:18.12.2003
Reviews:47
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WHAT IS IT EXACTLY AND WHAT DOES IT DO? OK, basically what this great little gadget does is allow you to record from a record deck or a tape player source onto your PC so that you can then write the tracks back again onto a CD. But why can you not just do that in the first place with a lead to your sound card I hear you say, well the volume levels of the deck and the PC are different. What this causes on a direct connection is, when you play the CD back you will have the volume level right up and hear loads of crackles and hisses.
This unit matches the two sound levels by lifting (amplifying) the sound level from the deck to be the same as what the PC is expecting as its input. Pretty cool stuff isn’t it but surely you will still get all the crackles and hisses, but just louder. Well yes you would if it wasn’t for the fantastic software included in the package. The software gives you loads of filters and editing software and you can pretty much play about with your songs until your heart is content. Then once you’ve got it all sorted out, just chuck a blank CD into your CDRW drive and click the write function and hey presto you’ve just converted from your old worn out LP to a great little CD that you can now go and play in any standard CD player.
COMPATIBILITY Right as usual it runs via USB making it pretty much compatible with anything from Windows 98SE and later as the earlier versions don’t support USB properly, although patches are available from the internet.
SPEED Running on USB 1.0 gives a speed of around 12mb a second. This is perfectly adequate for doing this job as it would work a hell of a lot slower too. The amount of time per track is pretty much a case of just playing you old track and recording it in, so the time taken is the length of the track. Then editing is entirely up to you, as soon as you feel it is right just burn it to CD.
RELIABILITY Great I’ve heard a lot about TerraTec, but this is the first product I’ve used. Since I’ve had no problems probably will do again. It always sees the device when you plug it in and it never looses the connection with it either.
EASE OF INSTALLATION Very easy, all you do is plug the USB cable into the back of your PC and then put the CD into the drive and follow the instructions on screen. The software is a case of playing with it once it is installed, although the manual will guide you through it pretty well.
INSTRUCTION MANUAL Nice, easy to follow steps in a easy to follow format. Guides you through from the basics to the advanced. Great.
VALUE FOR MONEY Only seen it for £90, sounds a bit expensive but I also looked at getting a separate pre-amp and running that to the sound card, but they are still about £25 and by the time you buy the leads your looking more like £40 and you still have no decent editing software. Great value for money overall.
MY OPINION It’s not for everyone, but then what is. If you have some old LP’s or tapes and want to convert them to CD then this really is the unit for you.
Go, go on, go now and buy one.
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Nice review. I would have liked a bit more on operating the device and how it is better than just a pre-amp and existing audio software which also allows level adjustment.
HopSkotch 23.01.2004 11:58
Nice review but the gadget itself didn't convince me I needed one right this minute, especially at that price. Connecting my existing stereo to the computer and then using recording software (which gives the ability to adjust sound levels) sounds like a better option to me.
Device / Form FactorExternalTechnical DataSystem Requirements / OS RequiredMicrosoft Windows XP SP2Technical DataHeader / Product LineTerraTec Phono PreAmpTechnical D...
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