By Andrew Liszewski
If for some reason you still have a bunch of cassettes you need archived to a digital format but feel hooking up your walkman to your PC’s sound card with a stereo cable is too low-tech then this is for you Mr. Overkill. The Plus Deck converter is easily installed into a spare 5 1/4 inch bay on your tower and can either be used for simply playing back that old mix tape or recording it to a format that might still be in use in 5 years.
As novel as this device is I think the chances that most people having any type of recordings that only exist on a cassette tape are pretty rare. Any album has long since been re-released on compact disc and while you can complain about digital not sounding as good as analog I can guarantee they’re at least better than what cassettes were capable of. There’s a reason professionals used the larger format reel to reel tape instead of these. However if you did the whole ‘garage band’ thing back in the 80’s and 90’s you do probably have a shoebox full of old recordings but I suggest just leaving them where they are.
The Plus Deck converter is currently available from Firebox.com for just under $200.
[ Plus Deck Converter ] VIA [ Coolest-Gadgets ]
See compgeeks. $90
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=PLUSDECK2C&cpc=SCH
Yeah, too bad they’re out of business and I can’t find WIN 7 downloads for it.