Vinyl to mp3 players

[Metr0Land]

I have plenty of original LP's from 60's and 70' (and a few 80's) which I'd like to convert and download to a usb stick to play in my car (not interested in having them on a phone).  There seem to be plenty of players like this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/DIGITNOW-Bluetooth-Speakers-Turntable-Cassette-Black/dp/B01L1FSP2C/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=vinyl+to+mp3+converter&qid=1668369122&sr=8-4

(others available of course).

 

For cheap ones the onboard speakers seem poor (I might have better speakers lurking somewhere) however the real point of the exercise is to get the tracks on usb stick.  Thus I can live with poor speakers on the player provided the 'proper' sound gets through to the usb stick and plays well in the car.

 

Can anyone recommend a relatively cheap player (ie not too much above £50) that delivers good sound when the usb stick is played on something with good speakers.

[Hroth]

Its a world of Hertz.......

 

The output from the turntables that record directly to a USB stick is frankly rubbish, there is no control over sound levels or tonal qualities and the turntable itself makes me cringe.They may have improved since I last heard one, though going by the price of the example you posted, its not much different to the one I tried out!

 

What you need is a turntable with a USB output that you can connect to a PC (and assuming you have access to a Windows PC for this exercise)

You can get a USB output turntable with the same branding from Amazon for £44. Although its the same basic turntable, it doesn't have all the excess gadgetry interfering with the sound coming from it. £30 pounds more gets you a turntable that decently supports an LP and looks more like a conventional "HiFi" turntable (though the tone arm/cartridge probably isn't any better).  I wouldn't trust any software supplied to be the most recent version, its best to install a good freshly downloaded package.

 

Install Audacity  on your PC. This is software that allows you to capture and edit the sound output from your turntable via the USB port.  Once working (an exercise for the reader, though its not difficult nowadays!) the sound file can be exported to your hard disk in whatever format, eg mp3, you require.

 

The mp3 (etc) files can be copied to the storage media of your choice and there you go!

 

Hope thats helpful.

 

 

Edited November 13, 2022 by Hroth

[big jim]

I’ve got my laptop linked to a numark usb  record deck with a decent stylus fitted (numark ‘concord’ DJ type) which I’ve found makes a huge difference to recording quality over the cheap supplied stylus (without going down the snake oil thread route!)

 

I record to audacity which I found can take a little bit of setting up to get the input and output source and levels correct but once up and running there are lots of editing options and it’s quite simple to use, you can even record 33rpm records at 45rpm then use the software to slow it back down if you want to record things quicker!
 

i then save the MP3 to the pc where you can transfer to the usb (although I save mine to my iTunes library) 

[jjb1970]

I'm not a vinyl fan and so am probably not the person to advize, but one thing I would say is that if you really value your vinyl collection then be very careful of the really cheap turntables as they can damage records thanks to really poor quality stylus and high down force. I'm not saying go out and spend $$$$$$s (personally I wouldn't buy a turntable anyway) but there are modestly priced turntables from companies like Audio-Technica, Sony and Rega that do it all a lot better.

[DavidB-AU]

7 hours ago, Hroth said:

Its a world of Hertz.......

 

The output from the turntables that record directly to a USB stick is frankly rubbish, there is no control over sound levels or tonal qualities and the turntable itself makes me cringe.They may have improved since I last heard one, though going by the price of the example you posted, its not much different to the one I tried out!

 

What you need is a turntable with a USB output that you can connect to a PC (and assuming you have access to a Windows PC for this exercise)

You can get a USB output turntable with the same branding from Amazon for £44. Although its the same basic turntable, it doesn't have all the excess gadgetry interfering with the sound coming from it. £30 pounds more gets you a turntable that decently supports an LP and looks more like a conventional "HiFi" turntable (though the tone arm/cartridge probably isn't any better).  I wouldn't trust any software supplied to be the most recent version, its best to install a good freshly downloaded package.

 

Install Audacity  on your PC. This is software that allows you to capture and edit the sound output from your turntable via the USB port.  Once working (an exercise for the reader, though its not difficult nowadays!) the sound file can be exported to your hard disk in whatever format, eg mp3, you require.

 

I agree 110% with this. Some of those that record directly to a USB stick aren't even stereo, they are dual mono!

 

Get a good quality USB output turntable and use Audacity to record at 320kbps.

 

I would also recommend exporting "archive" versions of of your digitised music at the highest bitrate and in FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) format. From those make your everyday playable MP3s, possibly at a lower bitrate to reduce the file size if necessary.

 

For the record (pun intended!) digital preservation has been my day job for the last 11 years.

[big jim]

4 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

I'm not a vinyl fan and so am probably not the person to advize, but one thing I would say is that if you really value your vinyl collection then be very careful of the really cheap turntables as they can damage records thanks to really poor quality stylus and high down force. I'm not saying go out and spend $$$$$$s (personally I wouldn't buy a turntable anyway) but there are modestly priced turntables from companies like Audio-Technica, Sony and Rega that do it all a lot better.

swapping from the cheapo supplied generic stylus and head (technics 1210 type copy) to a decent DJ standard numark stylus, not a particularly expensive one, about £60iirc, made a world of difference to the record quality, I could drop the record levels down and it was a lot lot crisper sound so much so some of my early conversions sound awful listening back now, very muffled mid range and tinny top end 

[jjb1970]

The secret of good record playback is tone arm and cartridge set up. Get a decent cartridge and set it up properly and you really don't have to spend much. Unfortunately vinyl is the source of a lot of audiophile madness, because the format did actually need an interest in set-up and tweakery (things like vibration isolation makes an audible difference for example) manufacturers, audio writers and many enthusiasts have dreamt up ever more imaginative ways to try and squeeze digital and solid state electronics into the same box as vinyl. Speakers are similar, if you set up speakers properly (and nowadays there are very good EQ programs to make it easy) you don't need the best speakers to get really good sound quality.

[tigerburnie]

I have an original Technics SLB-210 turntable for playing my vinyl, had it since the mid 1980's, not played daily, or even every month at times, but after replacing the drive belt, it still runs really well. I do have cassette tape decks (yes really) and my kids bought me a Steepletone, conversion turntable, but found it next to useless really, I don't have an MP3 or any form of player that would use a USB stick, so I stick to playing discs, tapes and cd's on the appropriate player, my amps a Rotel and my speakers are Polk. Cd player is a Marantz and my tape deck is a Technics of the same age as my turntable. My pc has a Harmon Kardon base unit with a built in amp and desk top tweeters, I used to stream from Spotify, but haven't done so this year.

[ejstubbs]

17 hours ago, Hroth said:

What you need is a turntable with a USB output that you can connect to a PC (and assuming you have access to a Windows PC for this exercise)

 

...

 

Install Audacity  on your PC. This is software that allows you to capture and edit the sound output from your turntable via the USB port.  Once working (an exercise for the reader, though its not difficult nowadays!) the sound file can be exported to your hard disk in whatever format, eg mp3, you require.

 

The mp3 (etc) files can be copied to the storage media of your choice and there you go!

 

FYI, Audacity runs on Mac as well: https://www.audacityteam.org/download/mac/

[Hroth]

50 minutes ago, ejstubbs said:

 

FYI, Audacity runs on Mac as well: https://www.audacityteam.org/download/mac/

 

Its a useful bit of software.  It also runs on Linux too.