Question : Problem: USB Cassette Player

This is a follow up to my question about converting Cassette tapes to CD's.

I need specific recommendations for a cassette tape player that I can plug into the USB port of either an XP Pro or Vista Ultimate computer.

I have seen several for sale on the Internet, but have no idea which one to buy.

The cassette tapes are voice only, so I am not concerned about very high quality "music" levels of recording.
Thanks,

Vic

(Also testing this "Related Question Wizard".

Answer : Problem: USB Cassette Player

While it's true that "... any good cassette player will do ..."  IF you planned to connect to the sound card's input;  that's clearly not what you want to do, based on your question about connecting to the USB input.

Also, the sound card has no bearing on the quality if you're connecting via USB => it's not even in the signal path !!

You basically have three options that let you use a USB connection for the inputs:

(1)  A cassette deck with direct USB outputs ... such as this nice dual-deck unit:
http://www.firebox.com/product/1849?src_t=t20

(2)  A high-quality analog <-> USB converter, which can be used with any audio device (i.e. any cassette deck or player).   This has the advantage that you can use it with any audio inputs/outputs you might want to in the future.   You still need a cassette player, but the interface plus a basic cassette player will still be less expensive than the deck above.   http://www.altoedge.com/usbaudio/index.html

(3)  An external USB sound adapter, such as this:  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102174  (There are several more expensive, higher-end units, but this is plenty good enough for most purposes ... and certainly for the recording you want to do).   This can serve as the PC's sound card, and has a reasonable S/N ratio for the recording inputs.   The adapter (#2) is a better choice if you don't need the sound card features ... but I'll leave that choice up to you.

Note that with either #2 or #3 you'll also need a standard cassette player with audio outputs.   A nice deck will cost you about as much as the USB deck in #1, but any reasonable player with audio outputs should work fine for the voice recordings you want to use.   You can also find several good decks on e-bay for well under $100 ... here's one that expires in 15 hours that looks pretty good:  http://cgi.ebay.com/RCA-DUAL-STEREO-CASSETTE-DECK-MODEL-120-10-EXCELLENT_W0QQitemZ290228602315QQihZ019QQcategoryZ4784QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem    Or just pick up a cheap player at Wal-Mart, Best Buy, etc.  (the quality of a deck will certainly be better, however ... even for voice recordings).