Most cost effective way to

[Dorkenstein]

Is it more cost effective to connect an audio tape deck to a good recording sound card and record it to my pc for restoration or should I get something like the Plusdeck 2? I'm not sure where to post this but I am looking for a way to restore home audio tapes for relatives and there's no real indicator as to which way is the most cost effective.

If it is via sound card, which one is good for recording in via tape recorder? Thanks!

 

[Blain]

A good sound card and something like GoldWave to clean up the sound.

 

[Dorkenstein]

Cool, I've heard of goldwave. What about the actual cassette deck, does it need to be super good? It's hard to find good ones now since they are being phased out.

 

[Blain]

If the quality of the tapes is questionable, use just about anything...
Got a good quality boombox?

I transfered some songs for a friend of mine from tape to CD-R using a Sony boombox to play from.
If I remember correctly, I had to keep the volume very low for the line-in.

 

[Dorkenstein]

The tapes are in pretty good shape, just old. I will peek around for a boombox.

 

[jackschmittusa]

I use a Walkman with pretty good results. My wife uses a cheap desktop player from Radioshack that does a good job too.