Ion USB Turntable with Built-in CD Recording

I've been having a lot of fun with this turntable. It does everything it is supposed to.A word to the wise ... turn off auto track split - it will start new tracks when you don't want it to.Very easy operation - choose your disc, press the RECORD button to start the recording process in PAUSE mode, test the recording levels - play the disc from the beginning and press PLAY / PAUSE to start recording. Press PLAY / PAUSE again to pause recording when the track is finished. Press SPLIT TRACK to start a new track in memory, recording will still be in the pause mode. Choose your next disc - repeat... until you have all the tracks you want.You can rearrange or delete tracks before burning the CD. When you have all the tracks as you want you can then burn to CD.Another word to the wise - read the pamphlet before trying to burn to disc. I generally do not read manuals, and I could not figure how to get the music from internal memory burned on to a disc - but I looked it up and felt somewaht stupid when I read how to do it.Also, on the front of the unit by the CD tray, it says you can only use MUSIC CD-R discs, but that is not true, I have burned quite a few regular CD-R discs. The pamphlet also states you can use regular CD-R.The only problem I have had with the unit is the occasional extra track inserted when things get too quiet. This unit could use a combine track function to combat this problem. This is why I turn off auto track splitting. And you must do this every time you turn the machine on - it doesn't remember the setting.Overall, the unit is very well built, perfoms flawlessly and I have had no problems recording to memory or to disc. The turntable also sounds better than doing this with my Audio Technica turntable hooked up to the stereo and dedicated CD recorder - there is better bass response with the ION.Setup was fairly straightforward. If you've never set up this type of turntable before, balancing the tone arm may seem a little daunting - so read the instructions carefully.This unit is a great idea which has been carried out nearly perfectly. I'd recommend this to anyone who has a vinyl collection they'd like to digitize.The CD's that you burn with this will, however, still have the beginning lead in and ending lead out sounds since you have to start recording before the music actually starts to get the beginning of each track. The manual track split function combined with the delete track function can remedy this if that bothers you. If you do use these functions to get rid of extra lead in / lead out time, be sure you delete the extra noise tracks. It will not let you burn a CD if there is any track in memory of less than 4 seconds in length.There are RCA Jacks on the back for output to an amp, or input from any line-level source, such as tape deck, CD player, etc. You can choose to record from the Line In source by flipping a swith on teh unit. I have not used the USB function on the turntable, nor the software that came with it as I have my own music software. It does come with the free Audacity software, which I've read is very good and updated frequently.I was a little hesitant to purchase this after reading some of the problems people had, but the good reviews far exceeded the bad ones, and I decided to go ahead and buy this unit. I am glad I did.Have fun!Anthony

I received this as a gift, so I don't know what it cost. I would pay $250 for this product; I think that would be a fair price. It's of good quality, and it works well.I started out converting to the USB turntable's flash memory and then to CD. This is the easiest (very easy!) way to convert LP's to CD's, and it works well. It's sensible to convert to flash first, because you get a chance to preview your work, and because recording to flash doesn't add CD-drive noise, as converting directly to CD would. It was a little disconcerting to have to push both 'record' and also 'play' buttons to get the thing to record, but I sort of understand why they did it this way.But recording to flash and then to CD is not the best way to use the product. Although the easy way works very well in most cases, I got into trouble because one album I wanted to convert (Cat Stevens' "Foreigner") contained a very long song, and this got me a not-at-all-informative error message. After wasting two CD's, I guessed that I should split the song manually into smaller pieces, which worked. But the simple method also doesn't provide any way to remove clicks and pops, and some of my old albums sound like popcorn.Then I ran out of blank CD's, and accidentally found what I like most about this product: it includes, and works well with, a program called "Audacity", which is an open source program for recording audio straight to a computer's disk. (I declined to install the included program, 'EZ vinyl tape converter', because it wants to install and use a copy of ITunes, which I already have, and hate, and don't want to get my music mixed up with. I keep ITunes around only so my daughter can use her damn IPod. I hate Apple.)Anyway, Audacity does a great job of recording directly to my PC's disk, and lets me convert to .wav and (because I found a copy of lame_enc.dll) to .mp3, which is what I *really* wanted.Now, here's my strategy: I run Audacity, start recording, start the USB turntable, wait until it's done, trim off the beginning and ending, remove clicks/pops, mark tracks, and convert to WAV and mp3. It's quite easy to do, and there's step-by-step instructions to help.If you're on a restricted budget and already have a regular turntable, just get a cable that converts a pair of RCA jacks to a 1/8" stereo phone jack, plug it into your computer's microphone input, run Audacity (see [...]), and convert. You'll have to do a little thinking, maybe, but you can get good results this way.

This has proved an excellent replacement for my Hi-Fi record deck which had failed after 20 years service. The sound quality is very good and the ability to easily create CD's from my LP's is fantastic. I first made the mistake of plugging the output cable into my amp's phono in sockets resulting in horrible distorted sound but on checking other reviews realised they should have been connected to a line level input which instantly solved the problem (It would have been useful to have this mentioned in the trouble-shooting section of the handbook). My only slight criticism is the very short mains cable lead which means you will probably have to use an extension lead to plug it in.The deck is very looks very attractive and is a pleasure to use. Highly recommended.

Es útil dentro de un campo, pero esta poco pensado por el precio, los 529 € que vale, debería dar pie a tener un grabador DVD y no CD, el coste es mínimo y ya cuesta encontrar ganadoras de CD, debería tener la alternativa de grabar directamente en mp3 y no tener que recurrir a un ordenador.No estoy satisfecho, hace lo que otros que tiene un precio 6 veces menos !!!

Ich habe zwei von Stiftung Warentest getestete und mit "Gut" bewertete Plattenspieler zur Digitalisierung von Schallplatten verglichen: den Denon DP 200USB und den Ion Audio LP2CD. Der Ion Audio lieferte die deutlich bessere Qualität der digitalisierten Platten. Ich finde es auch angenehm, ohne den Umweg über den PC arbeiten zu können. Der Ion Audio brennt die CDs selbstständig, das macht weniger Arbeit, als wenn alles über den PC läuft. Er verwertet allerdings nur CDs im Format CD-R, so dass man vorher genau überlegen muss, was auf die CD soll. Wer immer eine ganze LP digitalisieren will, den wird das wenig stören. Der Ion Audio brennt knapp 80 Minuten auf eine CD. Übrigens lassen sich auch alte Musikcassetten oder Tonbandaufnahmen digitalisieren oder auch Radiosendungen mitschneiden. Kurz: Der Ion Audio LP2CD digitalisiert jedes Eingangssignal und brennt es auf CD, so wie man früher auf Tonband mitgeschnitten hat. Und das alles in sehr guter Qualität, keine MP3-Dateien.

Une platine arrivée très rapidement comme toujours.Très bien emballée.Un peu de peine au départ , voix très aigües.Je me suis aperçue que l'élastique était mal posé.Après aucun problème. J'ai essayé enregistrement puis gravure sur CD/RWje faisais des essais, pas encore pris le temps sur le micro.J'ai suivi le conseil d'un utilisateur qui disait"pas la peine de se casser la tête avec l'informatique".mais je pense que cela offre plus de possibilités, graver seulement les morceaux choisis, ôter peut-être les grésillements, etc.Bref un grand plaisir de retrouver ses 20 ans...il y a plus de 40 ans,de revivre les moments d'écoute..mais cela ne fait que 10 ans que je ne les écoute pluscar l'ampli de a chaîne ne fonctionne plus.Un vrai régal de pouvoir mettre sur CD tous les disques de mes enfantset les dupliquer pour les offrir à leurs enfants (mes nombreux petits-enfants chéris)et les envoyer très loin sur un autre continent!Des moments de loisirs "créatifs" de bonheur.

Manual de Usuario, un tanto espeso, un poco confuso.Las instrucciones en la pantalla, también tendrían que ser en otros idiomas.