Audio Recorder 2.0 Deluxe

Awesome product. Easy to set up and easy to use. sound quality is amazing. Was skeptical at first. Thought to myself how can such a little box help convert my audio cassettes into mp3 files. Been able to convert most of my cool tunes that were trapped on cassettes into mp3 files.

Besides the poor ID tags that have already been mentioned by another reviewer, the biggest flaw is this: If you record an LP, it will save this as a WAV file, which is great. But once you edit this file into the individual tracks, you can't save this anywhere. You either have to immediately burn this to a CD or convert them to MP3. If you don't, all the edits are lost. Can't be saved. This is unacceptable if you have two sides of an LP(and last I checked, all LP's have 2 sides) that you want to incorporate to one CD. The only way you can do this is to convert each side to an MP3 and then take all those files and RE-convert them back to WAV files for CD burning. That is just plain dumb. And if you start your edits but want to come back later to them, you had better keep the software running because otherwise, it's lost. Can't save your work. Recording is easy, though. Thus the one star.

The box and the interface are very slick, well done. If only the software was as slick. It seems a bit buggy, and has some issues that really need to be addressed. The idea is awesome, but the execution needs some work. The Noise Reduction DOES remove the hiss, but it also ADDS some digital trash in the background, most noticable in the soft passages...kind of a digital swooshing sound. The more "reduction" you add, the more swooshing is added. When you add NR, it causes the VU meters to rise to the 80% level and just sit there, making them virtually useless. My biggest complaint is that it only creates an edit at the beginning of a song, so you end up with 3-4 seconds of silence at the end of each cut. Tech support says that is the way it is suppose to work...only 1 slice per cut. They really should have two slices per cut so that each cut has a clean beginning and ending....or at least make it an option. When you start a recording, the program puts some digital static at the beginning of the cut for 2-3 seconds...and occasionally you'll hear it add a "pop" to the recording. When you go to do an auto-slice, the software thinks that digital garbage is an actual cut, so you end up with false Cut 1's. You then have to uncheck Cut 1 and renumber all the cuts since Cut 2 is actually Cut 1...Cut 3 is cut 2, etc. Overall it's a pretty good program that just needs some work. Hopefully they will address some of these problems in future updates.

I just purchased and installed Audio Recorder 2.0 and got the update patch from their website. It appears to be a well-considered application for dubbing cassette and LP recordings to MP3. I haven't ripped a cassette yet, but even if everything works perfectly as described in the manual, I can only award a maximum of 3 stars because of the weak ID3 tag editing provided. You can only control Album Name, Track Name, and Year. The ID3 tag is crucial to archiving audio programs in MP3 format. I will have to use a separate application to properly set the ID3 information for MP3 recordings made with Audio Recorder 2.0. The maximum MP3 bitrate is 224 Kbps. I usually use 256 Kbps when I rip CD's with Windows Media Player. I would value the rca-to-usb box at $25, and the software at $20.

I found this product very easy to hook up and use. This is great even for the techno-challenged. The only problem I have found with it is with the track numbers on the CD. They do not match up with the songs from the cassette tape. That makes looking for a specific song difficult. I am still working out the kinks, but otherwise am very happy with my purchase.

I can't address some of the negative reviews on this product, but so far it has accomplished what I bought it for, and surprisingly well. Long/short the quality of a CD from a cassette tape is as good or for some reason even better. I have done only two music cassettes at this point, one seemed a little better and the other considerably better than the cassette it came from, for reasons I don't understand; and this much I do know is that I know it for sure. I wasn't born yesterday. Both were done on WAV format, the mp3 seems a little mushy. Whatever tracks complaints have been written, it's not an issue with me. One cassette side equals one track on the CD--simple, and with WAV format one CD pretty much holds one cassette. If you use the Wizard mode it defaults to mp3; and Advanced mode to WAV, but in that mode you can choose. They don't seem to tell you that, you find it out for yourself after wasting time in the Wizard mode. I tried the 2.0 Plus model and it didn't work on my 3 yr old computer because apparently sound card issues. I would recommend to be safe a new buyer go directly to the Deluxe model. More money but you have more insurance that it will work and work well.

Easier to use than I expected. this brought back many memories of family that had been on cassette. I am forever grateful as I can now share these with family.

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