So its the end of the road for the cassette. Do we all remember compiling our favorite driving tape? Can anyone explain why some car companies still insist on placing radio cassette players in their base models. It must be costing them more to buy these than the standard cd player. Am I being cynical in assuming that this is merely there way of punishing you for buying the base model. In that case why not put in a 8 track cartidge player?
That would really show you. Come on Citreon explain yourself and where are you getting these players from, you must be having them specally made in a secret factory in the East.
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I've had to buy a portable radio/CD/cassette player so that I can play my tapes. I'm thinking about finding a way to transfer them onto CD so that I can play them in my car again.
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L\'escargot.
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I like to listen to radio plays while driving, that I don't have time to listen to at home. I've yet to find a way of recording radio to CD at reasonable cost. Unless anyone can advise otherwise?
I currently use a freeview digi-box to to full-size audio separates.
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I've yet to find a way of recording radio to CD at reasonable cost.
My portable will record from the radio onto a cassette.
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L\'escargot.
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Unless anyone can advise otherwise?
I have a kworld DVB-T 300U USB Freeview tuner connected to one of my home PCs.
Cost was about twenty quid from MESH Computers.
I use it to record both Freeview tv and radio for burning to DVD, CD, or Compact Flash card for consumption whilst on the move. Radio burned to CD plays fine in the car, error free. I make the last comment as some car CD players are intolerant of some recordable CD.
For completeness and honesty of comment; like all of these devices that I've come across, including the market leaders in terms of sales from Hauppage and Black Gold, setup was not plug and play despite what the literature would have you believe (a search of the Backroom will reveal the fun and games that I had). Having sussed the problem though, it now works as it should and delivers stunning results; picture quality from the cheap Kworld tuner burned to DVD and played on the lounge DVD player slightly betters that of the same programme recorded on the expensive Panasonic Hard Disk recorder in our lounge and played on the same tv.
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"I like to listen to radio plays while driving, that I don't have time to listen to at home. I've yet to find a way of recording radio to CD at reasonable cost. Unless anyone can advise otherwise?"
Try a Griffin Radio Shark
Record to your PC or MAC and burn to CD
www.amazon.co.uk/Griffin-4018-RADS-RadioShark-Radi...2
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New version of Radio Shark 2 cheaper here;
www.expansys.com/p.aspx?i=146357
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Wind-up gramaphone on the back seat.
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I'm one of those simple souls who likes the radio in the car and not much else - am I alone in this?
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"I like to listen to radio plays while driving, that I don't have time to listen to at home. I've yet to find a way of recording radio to CD at reasonable cost. Unless anyone can advise otherwise?"
If you have broadband, go to the BBC website where you can get the last 7 days of Radio free of charge (you'll need to download their software - Real Player, IIRC).
You can then use software to record this internet radio to your hard drive. I use a cheap dowloaded programme called Rip Vinyl (RPI - geddit?). A freeware programme called Audacity also comes highly recommended.
Once you've recorded the radio onto your hard drive, you can copy ("rip") to CD using itunes, windows media player etc.
Rip Vinyl and Audacity can also be used to create CDs of cassettes.
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I have not quite given up on them. I still have one (along with a turntable) in my hifi and my 2001Y BMW 530I came with them. I find the hissing noise strangely comforting and I like listening to my taped vinyl with scratches and remembering when I made that particular scratch in my youth. Happy days
I actually don't find CD,s anything like as tactile as vinyl and buying them now seems so much less of an event whereas buying vinyl seemed a lot more exciting. I remember when the little single speaker portable cassette players came along and it appeared such a huge leap forward (the same when the Walkman came along). Modern technology is impressive but the problem is finding the time to convert all your old vinyl (and I have hundreds) to MP3. I have targeted it as a retirement project!
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you can get bbc radio broadcasts on vinyl if you look hard enough, then once you obtain them get a turntable and put it under the bonnet of your car , laurel and hardy had one in one of their 2 reelers
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"I like to listen to radio plays while driving, that I don't have time to listen to at home. I've yet to find a way of recording radio to CD at reasonable cost. Unless anyone can advise otherwise?"
If you're buying new kit to listen to radio in the car, the easiest/quickest way to do it is to download podcasts of the radio programme onto an MP3 player. Then you need one of i) a radio with an MP3 inlet, ii) a FM transmitter or iii) a tape deck adapter to feed the MP3 output through to the in-car speakers. A forum search will turn up all you need to know about the required connections.
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A Pure Evoke 3 offers the option of recording DAB broadcasts (with a timer and an electronic programme guide) in MP2 format onto an SD memory card. The quality is fine for speech and requires about 34MB of storage for each hour of programme. You can copy these to CD-R, which will play directly if your car player is MP3-compatible, copy them to an iPod and play them in through an AUX port, or convert them back to audio files and burn those to CD-R instead.
You could start with last night's Another Case of Milton Jones, in which our man is about to conquer Everest.
Anton: We're about to make history, Milton. We'll be the first to make it to the top without oxygen, food, or any sort of climbing equipment.
Milton: Yes, sorry about that. Bit of a mix-up with the luggage. But on the plus side, we can play table tennis as often as we like.
The Evoke 3 isn't cheap but would make a very nice kitchen radio / music player too. I haven't got one - my brother has - but it's on my list.
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"You could start with last night's Another Case of Milton Jones"
It's on tape ,ready for my next trip.
Many thanks for all the suggestions, I'll have to sit down and get technical.
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Gan,
it's a huge effort and disks are cheap (ish) so save as WAV files, burn as MP3. Then when MP3b or whatever comes along you can go back to your original "full" copy and burn all over again. An album will need about 0.5Gb so a 500Gb drive (£100 ish?) will take 1,000 albums approx.
JH
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L'escargot.
Done it, From my little office HiFi to my PC and then recorded with Audacity Software which saves it as an MP3 or WAV (works on iTunes as well) perfect.
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So its the end of the road for the cassette.
Is this apropos any particular news? Or just a general comment on the fact they aren't being installed much any more?
Would have thought the replacement for the bottom-of-the-range radio-cassette would be a radio-only hifi, never mind that you can get an (admittedly poor-quality) car hifi from Argos that plays CDs and MP3s for £50, so the saving is little (though the 50,000 hi-fi upgrades at £300/time will make a larger impact on profits).
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>> So its the end of the road for the cassette. Is this apropos any particular news?
I assume the OP is referring to this: snipurl.com/1jxiq ? Currys are phasing out the sale of blank cassettes, and they expect tape players to disappear from new audio equipment within 18 months.
Good riddance to them, horrible ancient technology, the number of times I have had to wind the tape back in with a pencil; I stopped using them 7 or 8 years ago. For recordable technology I quite liked miniDiscs, but I could never be bothered to type in all the track names.
Sadly I've still got the factory fit tape player in my car (stereo integrated into the dash which I do not want to replace) but have only used it with an iPod cassette adapter..
;o)
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I assume the OP is referring to this: snipurl.com/1jxiq ? Currys are phasing out the sale of blank cassettes and they expect tape players to disappear from new audio equipment within 18 months.
Dixons Group do this every so often: they announce that they're no longer going to be selling some once ubiquitous technology and lazy news editors lap it up. They've previously done the same with 35mm cameras, VHS recorders and floppy discs.
Good riddance to them horrible ancient technology...
Couldn't agree more. Nasty hissy things that get chewed up by car players. A particular danger point is the moment when power to the player gets interrupted when you turn on the ignition. I haven't bought a cassette since the eighties.
For anyone wanting to digitise their old music collection, it is possible to buy dedicated PC cassette and record decks, but most decks can be connected to the line input on a computer.
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it was reported that curries? or some other high street store is stopping buying new stocks for their stores in the bbc online newsa yesterday mr flunk
obviously they will be obtainable for years to come via tinternet or poundland (10 @ £1)
i still buy reel to reels, try playing them in your car unless you have a portable 3inch playing machine at 3 3/4 speed
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>>>you can get bbc radio broadcasts on vinyl if you look hard enough, then once you obtain them get a turntable and put it under the bonnet of your car , laurel and hardy had one in one of >>>their 2 reelers
Don't tempt me. Actually I am sure there were some 1950's American cars with a built in turntable system. Of course long flat straight roads might make it feasible
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Don't tempt me. Actually I am sure there were some 1950's American cars with a built in turntable system. Of course long flat straight roads might make it feasible
The Chrysler in-car phonograph: crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9687999-1.html
"...As well as skipping on uneven surfaces, drivers were only supposed to listen to artists signed to Columbia Records, due to an exclusive content arrangement..."
John Lennon had one in his Merc limo too didn't he...
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"in-car phonograph"
A colleague in 1970s had a "record player" in his car - only played "singles" so had to be changed every 3 mins or so (unless you were a Pink Floyd or Emerson Lake and Palmer fan........whose singles seeemed to be interminable......especialy since it "jumped" every 3 seconds and went back to the beginning)
But then what am I complaining about - somewhere up in the loft are a couple of hundred 8-tracks, all wound so tight they refused to play, which is a good job since most were Yes, Deep Purple, Rick Wakeman etc. Perhaps best that they are unplayable!
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Phil
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I've had cassettes in the past and found them to be the biggest pain. For my car I have a MiniDisc player. Smaller than CDs and the collection's easier to append than an MP3 disc. It's a shame Sony are dropping it (quietly).
Vinyl car players ate records. You're probably talking about the best part of 10+g of vertical force to keep the tracking going over those bumps. Much better to buy a decent setup and a cartridge with <2g tracking force and record songs onto another medium for the car, if you want to enjoy your vinyl for a long time.
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Mike Farrow
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Recording the radio has never been as advanced as recording television. The current idea of recording to SD cards is good but you're restricted in what you can play back on, without jumping through a lot of hoops to convert the format. And car makers have always lived in the past when it comes to radios / cassettes / CDs and so forth. The base model will still have a cassette player in it when you can no longe buy C90s! You don't suppose it's a scam to get us into the options list do you? Surely not!
JH
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If I was making any new investment in car or home audio, it would have to include USB/Flash type facility. You can get these boxes for the car for £100ish that replace the CD changer (and use it's lead) and you simply plug in any USB flash stick or drive and the songs come up as CDs and tracks, up to 600 tracks. All you need is a USB socket in the ashtray.
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If I was making any new investment in car or home audio it would have to include USB/Flash type facility. You can get these boxes for the car for £100ish that replace the CD changer (and use it's lead) and you simply plug in any USB flash stick or drive and the songs come up as CDs and tracks up to 600 tracks. All you need is a USB socket in the ashtray.
It's amazing that I can get for around a tenner a small MP3 player that plugs into the 12v socket, takes USB flash drives and plays MP3s over the radio, but to get something similar built into a car costs hundreds of pounds.
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Ashok,
I've not seen them, have you got any links to them?
Thanks,
JH
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Good, I've always detested cassettes since watching a Long Player recording of the ..... er..... Beach Boys being chewed up by an infernal machine in 197*.
Although I now have a DVD player that leaves its mark.
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cassettes dont jump on speed bumps
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"obtainable for years to come via tinternet or poundland (10 @ £1)"
Don't you just love going in there and saying: 'how much is this'?
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We hired in a 06 Focus, expensive looking Sony Cassette player, as a poster asked - why ?
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I think the only known user of cassettes these days is Osama bin Laden.
Weirdly only the top of the range Subarus come fitted with a cassette player as an adjunct to the CD/radio combo fitted to the mid range variants.
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Weirdly only the top of the range Subarus come fitted with a cassette player as an adjunct to the CD/radio combo fitted to the mid range variants.
Yes, I was surprised to see father-in-laws new Forester had a cassette player - what is the point?
I shall be glad to see the end of them. It always used to annoy me how the sound quality would fade with time, despite cleaning the heads - I always assumed that this was the particles on the tape slowly getting re-arranged by external magnetic fields, such as the speakers?
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"expensive looking Sony Cassette player, as a poster asked - why ? "
So you can put in that cassette converter thingy which then plugs into your ipod?
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Phil
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I never thought of that Phil - makes almost perfect sense in a hire car that !
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We hired in a 06 Focus expensive looking Sony Cassette player as a poster asked - why ?
Some of us oldies still have cassettes, the contents of which are not available on these new-fangled CD thingies. If a cassette player was available as an optional extra I personally would specify one.
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L\'escargot.
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The in-car tape deck has one crucial advantage. The yoof of today don't know what they are, so don't break into the car to nick them. Not that I play any tapes, mind. I prefer the radio or mp3 via the cassette adaptor.
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I've got an old sony tape head unit, no tapes, they went in the loft ages ago, but i do have a 10 disc changer which solves the problem of changing CD's whilst driving.
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Aim low, expect nothing & dont be disappointed
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This is one piece of technology I will never get nostalgic about. Carp sound quality, took longer to find the track you wanted than a typical car journey, and would randomly mangle itself in the player.
I look happily back on the music that was on some of my tapes, but the format itself was utterly horrible. Good riddance!
Cheers
DP
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Carp sound quality
Because (some of) us oldies haven't got hi-fi hearing we don't need hi-fi sound reproduction!
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L\'escargot.
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L
don't be so sure. My hearing is not good but I bought a new hi fi a couple of years back and auditioned several systems. The decent if relatively inexpensive NAD kit blew my 20 year old Technics gear out of the water. I could hear a distinct improvement moving from the decent kit to the expensive (Cyrus) and a further improvement moving up the Cyrus range. I spent more on the cables than on the previous hi fi and it's knock out! Give your ears a treat, go listen to a good hi fi. Bring your favourite CD round here if you like, try it out.
JH
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You're right JH. Bought a nice little Teac Reference system for the living room, wired into my existing Mission speakers, the sound was pretty good. The speakers went upstairs to a simple little Sony microsystem and the sound from that has improved beyond belief from the bog standard speakers that came with it.
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I've got an old sony tape head unit no tapes they went in the loft ages ago but i do have a 10 disc changer which solves the problem of changing CD's whilst driving. ---------------------------------------------- Aim low expect nothing & dont be disappointed
I know exactly what you mean - have you any idea how difficult it is to steer while you're poking around in the boot loading up the CD changer?
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The Dixons Group recently announced that it would not sell tungsten bulbs any more, only the low energy type.
The reason is simple. Higher profits as the latter normally cost much more.
Morrison's, thanks to a Government initiative that, for once, works, has been selling Philips low energy bulbs at 99p on a BOGOF basis for the second time in the last six months.
The energy companies cover the loss (the Government told them if they didn't they would be windfall taxed, just as with the requirement to install loft insulation and cavity wall insulation free for customers), so the best bet is to buy as many low energy bulbs as you can afford at 49p each.
Video recorders and cassette players will continue to be used for a very long time - just because outlets such as those of the Dixons Group don't sell them any more doesn't mean their immediate demise.
It's similar to the scare story that every standard television in the land will be useless when the country goes fully digital.
The same Freeview/ONDigital?ITVDigital set top box or computer system TV card or stick that serves you so well at present will be just as effective after 2012...:-)
What many people don't realise is that the Freeview STB or TV card converts the digital signal back to analogue - if it didn't you wouldn't be able to see it on your analogue TV.
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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I say "Boo!" to the demise of in-car cassette players.
In order to aleviate the boredom of the daily commute and long journeys I make use of our local library's excellent range of audio books. Typically eight to twelve cassettes giving unabridged readings of everything from Shakespeare to Andy McNabb.
Every minute in the car can thus be transformed into a voyage of imagination, excitement, adventure, passion and desire. (Mind you hearing some of the "racier" sections of the novels can be a little distracting.)
When I bought my Laguna I searched the internet to get a cassette player compatible with the steering column controls and was able to source one from a Trafic van for only a tenner.
Until my library can provide a selection of unabridged books on CD I shall stick to the old school audio.
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