Home > Consumer Reviews > PlusDeck 2c

I have been using the older Plus Deck 2 model for a couple of years now. I love this machine. Keep in mind this is an analog device being converted to a digital file. so it converts your tapes in real time. Unlike taking cd's and converting them to mp3 files, as you know normally takes only minutes to do. My car does not have a tape player but it does have a cd player that reads mp3's. i travel long distances to work and back, in traffic. Using this machine to convert books on tape to cd's that i can use in my car it a blessing. When converting your old tapes you can set this device to break the tape into individual mp3 files. (it senses the silence between the songs.) this works around 98 percent of the time. Or set it so it makes one mp3 file per side. (this is good for audio books). Plug the tape in, walk away and in a 1 to 2 hours (depending on the length of the tape), rename the files. I find they are
high quality recordings. Of course i reset the settings to 128bps.

I also 'retro fitted' a external case to house this device. I did find it a little tricky to 'merge' this device cabling into my machine that also has multiple sound hookups like cable tv recorder, vcr recorder, and phone recorder. (yes i use my computer as a answering machine)

As a fellow tech geek i would recomend this to any person that has tons of old cassette tapes they want to convert to mp3 files. Or people that wants to convert there books on tape to cd's.

The PlusDeck2 fits conveniently in an empty 5¼" bay while the included interface card is inserted in an empty slot and connects to the serial port. The drive can be computer controled or manually controled, the software extracts the tape content in a choice of sevreal bit-rates, can generate a single file per session, or splits each tune and dead air into separate files, the max number of files per session is 100, so, for tapes with more than 40 or so tunes per side, it is best to do one side at a time, the player will extract from side a and b without turning the tape over. Our ministry is converting taped archives of services into mp3 format for internet radio broadcasts. This drive is a wonderful solution, that we are using in a broadcast production pc, any mp3s that need to be refined are done with Adobe CoolEdit2.

Got this for my wife for Christmas since she has 100's of books on tape. Boxes and boxes of 'em. Now she can load up the 80 giger IPOD through Itunes and go for weeks. I had one of the local hackers here at my work help me w/ the hardware install as the directions were a little unclear on some of the connections. I was beating my head on the wall for two weeks trying to figure out why I was getting a little echoing or double-talk-chatter for about a minute or two on a tape. Tried everything...recording in WAV, 256 bit, changing different things in Quicktime, modifying the WAV or MP3 file with wavpad and audicity...no luck in cleaning up the bad part. So I finally sent an email to Plusdeck and they recommended uninstalling the latest version of PlusDeck 2C (3.25) and installing 3.23. Whala! No more echoing/double talk. So far, so good.

I have been real happy with this machine. I find that it works well with most tapes and not well with a few. I have a collection of over 600 cassettes and am at work getting them all digitized. Takes time as it is all a real time evolution. I have converted mine into MP3 format, saved to my external hard drive then copied them over to a 2 gig Flash Drive, and to my Creative Zen MP3 player. They sound great both through a Sony Cassette adapter or if you have a new car through the Aux jack that is being featured in the newer automobiles. I used mine in a rental Dodge Magnum. Non-stop music of my choice in an area where I did not know the radio stations. I am having a new computer custom built and it is being installed in the new setup. I found that the unit is too long to go into a minitower without protruding.

I have been on the market for a long time (six plus months), looking for a tape2digital converter. What deterred me from buying the plusdeck since I first saw it was actually the white exterior and I could not figure out how it would fit with the decor in my study. Only when I read the detailed specs on the plusdeck website did I realise that it actually sits on an empty slot in your computer. Make sure you have an empty slot in your machine that can be popped out. And if your machine sits under your desk - like mine does - you might not mind the sore sight of the Tapedeck's off-white contours all that much after all.

The wiring is slightly confusing (the exterior wiring that talks to your sound card) but to be fair, it does not require a brainiac to get this puppy installed and running.

The software is at best KISS(keep it simple stupid) quality. Unfortunately, the latter adjective would be more appropriate to its design and functionality. Here are the icky facts on the software, to name a few:

1. I have converted about seventeen tapes so far and the software has crashed several times. This inevitably happens if you try to save a tape while it is running. So you cannot really save just one clip on a tape unless you monitor the whole process. For songs, that is fine, but for discourses/books on audio, it can be quite frustrating. I still am working on it, maybe there is a solution and I don't know of it yet.

2. The individual file saver is pretty much non-functional. Plusdeck saves files initially in a .wav format and then converts to .mp3 - so there is a bit of quality loss there. But beggars can't be choosers :) so for me the fact that I could save some rare audios before my cassettes deteriorated completely was good enough to get it.

3. Also if you stop the cassette player mid-way, your .wav file may not be converted to .mp3

You need an external program (I use Audacity) to cut and export files individually. So every time you insert a cassette, before you hit the 'play' button, create a folder and let Tapedeck save the large file to that folder, then use an external program to clip your audio files and save them as individual files to that folder. It is quite a tedious process if you ask me.

Tapedeck2 does have options to save individual files, but it has not worked successfully for me. The official (and I might add;-tiny) website has a disclaimer that individual files may not be split properly - methinks, for a reason.

Sure you can get y-cables and record directly to your sound card, but at least for me that would've added to the jumble of stuff in my study. So here I am with my Plusdeck and despite all rantings, am happy I invested in it:) Of course if you want to drop more moolah, you can always buy the Tascam CC-222MKIII (~$650), but for the budget and the options in the market (or lack thereof) I gave the Tapedeck2 3-stars. There really is nothing else out there!!