ION Audio iTR01 Tape 2 PC | USB Cassette Deck Conversion System with RCA & USB cables

Bought this a couple of weeks ago and had some reservations. Though I did check out reviews not only on here but on Ion's Website and some other consumer websites for reviews of this Ion product. But I really wanted to convert my old cassettes to digital files, so I may listen to them wherever and whenever! The Ion Tape deck came when it was supposed to and no issues with packaging or any other problems.My biggest concern when I order something online that it is not packaged well and it may be broken either in shipping or handling of getting it to me. Rest assured I checked it over quite thoroughly, nothing broken or damaged and very well packaged. I have an Ion Turntable, so I did not have to install the software, just basically plug the tape deck in an outlet and plug the usb connector into my computer. And I was up and running in a few minutes. A previous reviewer has stated that there is a Gain knob on the back of the unit to adjust while recording. I admit it is in an awkward place, think it should be in the front, but other than that is works flawlessly. One word of caution, try a few sample runs of recording with store bought and homemade tapes to find the perfect balance for recording or transferring as a digital file. I have done about 30 tapes so far and I have found that homemade tapes need to be at a lower gain than the store bought tapes, I believe it has to do with the original recording volume. Usually when we make a homemade tape we usually have the recording volume louder than that of the store bought tapes. If you are not too keen of using I-Tunes, you do not have to. Just make sure that you have the most up to date version of Audacity(which is free to download from their website). I am not a big I-Tunes fan myself, lol! Audacity makes everything simple once you have some experience with it. And if you are confused by their manual, you can always look for an instructional video on YouTube. I do have one concern, but a minor and insignificant one, this unit does hum when plugged in(maybe it just be mine). The humming does not affect the conversion to digital files, but it is annoying. I do not keep the tape deck plug in all the time, so I only hear the hum right before I start a new project, and when I am done I unplug the unit, therefore no constant hum. Again, it does not effect the unit or the digitization of tapes, just an annoying observation and one that I can live with. This does everything I want and I am extremely happy with my purchase of the Ion Dual Tape deck, now all my tapes will be at my finger tips to hear whenever and wherever I would like to listen to them! A good deal for the money and saving all those tapes you may not be able to play anywhere but at home or if your car/truck has a cassette player, which is rare these days!

If you are not the most techincally capable or inclined this is still a very easy unit to operate using the ION software for all aspects of capture. If you are more savvy it can stay completely out of your way aside from being the device supplying the audio to your PC to capture. I haven't treid it but since it is a class compliant device I am willing to bet you could even use a smart phone and an OTG connector for capture if you were so inclined. I have archived everything I needed and reboxed the Tape2PC so I doubt I ever will. It operates as a USB microphone to Windows 10 so you can essentially use whatever software you want to capture the sound. Skip the supplied disc and its software and go to the URL the postcard sends you to for the latest ION capture software. I have two audio processing programs with which I am very familiar and comfortable operating. The ION supplied software is simply and easy enough for me to just use it for capture and then do final editing in my preferred program. It will capture as a WAV file at whatever settings you have this particular "microphone" to operate at. It defaults to 16 bit and 44Khz sampling, can go up to 16/48 but its cassette so... I used it as a pass through connected to a Nakamichi CR-3 and full fidelity of the Nak made recording were conveyed via the Tape-In so consider this as a possible method of connecting line level components to ta PC for 16/44Khz analog capture. The unit itself did an acceptable job with the Nak made tapes and a great job with recordings made on hand held note recorders and lesser devices. Low winding speeds might annoy you but between that and the just enough torque to do the job design I am ahppy to recommend this device. Its not

The ION Tape2PC is a good tool for converting old audio cassettes to modern digital formats. I have used it to convert over 700 cassettes of varying ages ( some going back over 40 years), brands and types (Ferrous, Chrome, Metal) and sources (home recordings, pre-recorded albums, LP to tape as well as radio and special mixes). Works great for these - I still have about another thousand tapes to convert so doing at least one tape per day I’ve got a few more years of transfers ahead :) A Note on Sound Quality : The ION device itself has been compared by other sites to have audio quality at equivalent to CD level, however I have also noted some persons making the complaint about less than Hi-Fi results. There are some real limitations with any digitization process starting with the quality constraints on the audio cassette in the first place - whatever you have recorded is as good as it will ever be given a few adjustments for EQ and levels. Next the ADC (Analog to Digital Converter) in the ION that takes the tape analog audio to the digital stream coming over the USB cable. This seems to be at a very good level that exceeds or matches the limitations of most audio cassettes. Critically the audio recording input process on the user’s PC is the next big challenge. I would suggest that before making any tape conversions that the user ensures that the recording input settings from the ION device is set to max - i.e. DVD quality. On a Windows PC, check the Sound Settings > Recording Tab then look at the Device Properties in the Advanced Tab. The highest level there is 2 channels, 16 bit, 48000Hz (full stereo with DVD quality). You will not get the best from the ION at any lower setting. I had the unfortunate experience of recording well over 100 tapes, that on later listening review, had slightly muddy sound for quite a few and poor stereo separation. I discovered that my recording input was set at 1 channel, 16bit, 22050Hz (mono with AM radio quality). After fixing that little issue I recopied my tapes at the DVD recording level with the vastly improved results that came alive with clear sound and good stereo separation. Finally, after making sure you’re getting the best from the source material, the choice of recording software and the encoding format - loss-less or lossy - gives the final touch. A tough choice here between the large file sizes from loss-less vs. the space saving but lower quality lossy formats. It comes down to personal choice and storage space realities. You have to try some test recordings and listen to the results for several formats and quality levels. As a general rule try a level or two up from what you find as a good recording - disk space is getting cheaper, your tapes are getting older and you don't have the time to do it over if you find that it could have been better recorded. I settled on 2 channel mp3 at 320Kbit - this was better than the quality of the source audio cassette and provided a good quality reference to replace my aging cassettes. The originals can go back to storage while the digital files allow them to live on again for hours of listening.

After reading all the negative reviews I was a bit wary but what the hell, it's only money. It does EXACTLY what it says it does. It's not sophisticated but it plays tapes. I do not like the software that comes with it but then again I hate iTunes. I downloaded Audacity for my PC and it works perfectly. If you do not already have a cassette player (which I no longer had) and you don't want to mess with audio cables and crawling around behind your computer (which I didn't) the ease of pluggin in a USB cable and digitizing your old tapes is nice. The operative word is OLD tapes. sometimes the tapes can start getting sticky or tight and you may have problems stemming from this. But for a simple solution the deck works well. And if you like iTunes or use it regularly the software that comes with the deck will probably work fine for you. But if you want to edit the tracks in any way, get Audacity (it's free). And the deck DOES work with Windows 7, just make sure you read the manual and the "quick start" guide.

Needed a machine to convert cassette tapes to MP3. The ION Tape 2 PC is a duel cassette tape machine that can copy tape to tape or tape to digital using the USB cable provided. The CD with the required software wouldn't load to my Mac so I had to contact ION for support. They replied on 'chat' within seconds and gave me links to the software, which downloaded without a problem, and also a link to a guide/manual (there's also a printed one in the box) and also a contact for one-on-one technical support if I needed it. Great customer service and really quick. The software/machine is easy to use and, once the software is loaded up, it's intuitive. Sound quality is a lot better than I expected. There's a 'gain' nob at the back of the machine that really makes a difference to the levels. There's a Record Level' nob at the front of the machine that doesn't seem to make any difference at all and a Noise Reduction switch that seems to work better 'off'. Tapes sound/convert better on deck B. The tracks go straight into iTunes as wav files and can be converted to MP3 in iTunes. The machine can split the tracks automatically if there's sufficient silent gaps between the tracks on the tape. I found pausing the tape between tracks helps the machine identify where tracks end and start. All easy enough for my limited tech knowledge. I haven't used the Dubbing function or the function for CrO2 tapes. Build quality on the tape decks is not particularly good and the 'Deck Counter' on my deck B only seems to work intermittently. All in all though I'm really pleased with the results and can recommend this machine. NB I'm in Australia but somehow managed to buy this on the Amazon.com site (instead of .com.au ) When it arrived I found it is configured for US power supply and I had to buy a voltage converter/adapter in order to be able to use it in Australia.

All I wanted was to convert some old cassettes to digital. Nope. The item arrived very well packed, the Ion disply box inside the Ion shipping box, which was inside the Amazon shipping box. Everything was in place, and the item looked great. I got it set up, wired, and connected to my PC. I followed the directions, which were pretty clear, clear enough, and the very first indication of a problem was that I could get no sound of my computer. My iTunes was working just fine, providing music as I worked this, but when I went to the cassette deck as an input, every following the instructions provided in the Ion quick start guide, I got nothing. The meter on the cassette deck showed that signal was moving in the deck, and I could detect signal moving to the PC, but couldn't get any sound out. This problem never got fixed. I went to install the conversion app, which went pretty well until it came time to open it. It asked me to install iTunes, the app unable to detect the fact that a fully up to date iTunes was already installed and working correctly. At that point I wrote an email to the one provided on the quick start guide. Nope, not a valid email address. Then I had to surf forever at the Ion website to get to my product only to find outdated information and instructions. I submitted a ticket and waited for a week, when the reply finally came that I had a ticket number and that they were understaffed due to covid and I might have to wait. Nope. Time to return the item. I wish this item had worked, I really do. I'm an audiophile and know about connections, and I know enough about computers--mine is a simple Dell desktop, nothing complex or custom--to know about inputs and outputs and signals. But this item didn't play and its app didn't do what I'd paid for. I cold have worked this for a week or two or more with the Ion folks, but that isn't the way it's supposed to work--the item is supposed to do its thing right out of the box. Bottom Line: this is a no-kidding tape deck that just might play your old cassettes for you through your PC, and it might even copy them to digital...but that didn't happen for me.

I purchased this to convert about 100 cassette tapes mostly from the 80s and early 90s. Most of the tapes are metal and a mix are chrome. They were originally mixed down from multi-track reel-to-reel to a high end cassette deck. So I was skeptical that the quality would be good enough to match the source material. But I'm impressed. The range is good and the analog to digital converter is surprisingly decent. The motor is so far strong in both decks. The unit is definitely fairly cheaply built otherwise. I'll be surprised if it lasts much past my conversion project. But for $90 I won't be too upset. I haven't had any issues with tapes playing at an inconsistent speed after converting 30 or so cassettes. They're all spot on. I didn't use the cheap software the deck came with. I am using a pro-grade digital audio workstation to record and process the conversions, so I can't speak to the bundled software. As others have noted, there is a massive noise floor in this device. It's not a ground loop, because I only hear it when a button is depressed, like during play, fast forward, or rewind. But it's loud. I used a combination of compressor/limiter and noise reduction VSTs while transferring everything to WAV files, so I was able to easily eliminate the background noise. Your mileage may vary. It's impossible for me to not recommend this cassette deck at this price. It was extremely easy to get running and it seems like the manufacturer has invested in quality components where it matters.

Bought this for the express purpose of converting cassette albums into MP3's. I don't use the USB function, I use the line out to go into my computer and use Audacity for the recording. Once, I got everything adjusted properly it has been smooth sailing, for forty (40) cassettes so far. For the folks complaining about the cassette drawer opening slowly, I think they have forgotten that we once lived in a slower world. Either that, or they are not old enough to even know. This project has made me think that I will end up adding this player into my sound system when I have finished the conversion process. Then, actually listen to some of those old cassettes. There is something about the sound of those old cassettes and having to get up and go flip it at the end of a side. As I stated earlier, I can't speak to the USB side of this. But, using the line out works fine and I am pleased with it. If they are all like the one I received, I would highly recommend this for a conversion project. Of course, your mileage may vary. (edit April 15, 2020) After a little over 100 cassette conversions, is still working fine.

Ion USB Cassette Deck with USB Connection to PC Delivered in good time and well packaged. Set-up was very easy, with easy to follow instructions. One reviewer made the comment that there was no automatic shut-off after recording had completed. Mine did. I just left the tape playing, did other things, then went back and the PC window stated recording completed. I'm more than satisfied with this item. It does what it says on the box "Convert your tapes to MP3 quickly and easily"

Ottimo prodotto lo uso per riportare vecchi nastri in cd con magix audio cleanic e per registrare qualche serata live. Connessione usb e uscite rca.

Fonctionne très bien. Belle qualité sonore. Me donne ce dont j’attendais comme performance. Bon prix pour la qualité du produit.

Very good quality product.Nice making.Provide original AC adaptor for 220 Volt users.Beautiful looking.But the software CD is not working in Windows 10 or Windows 7,you have to download! Good package, Blue dart couriering, wow very good performance.Hats off!

die Erwartungen. Das Tapedeck ist leicht anzuschliessen. Die Verarbeitung ist natürlich nicht wie bei einem Qualitätstapedeck. Es ist etwas billig bzw. wackeliug, aber für diesen Preis völlig okay. Das USB-Deck erfüllt seine Fuktion. Die Software lässt sich ohne größere Schwierigkeiten installieren. Für das finale Überspielen von Tapes auf den Rechner ist es ideal.