Audio Cassettes were the favourite way we stored and listened to music when I was in school. Each tape had two sides and together they had a running time of 60 or 90 minutes. The other day I found old cassettes that I converted to MP3 and listened to. It had songs I hadn’t listened to for years, for example ‘Across the Line’ by Tracy Chapman, ‘Papa Don’t Preach’ by Madonna and others. 

Many years back I had written a post on how to convert your old Cassettes to MP3. I used a device called ION Tape2PC which in Amazon USA costs $120 and in Amazon India costs about Rs.20,000 (as of 2017). Unless you need to convert hundreds of cassettes, there are cheaper alternatives now. [Disclaimer: I haven’t tested or owned any of the below devices, I just found them online, please buy them at your own risk.]

  1. ION Audio ITR05 Portable Analog to MP3 Digital Cassette Converter – Amazon India for Rs.2350 (as of 2017). Just like the ION Tape2PC I have, this requires a PC to be connected for conversion and storage of the audio MP3 files.
  2. APLINK Portable USB 2.0 Cassette Tape to MP3 Converter – Amazon India for Rs.2999 (as of 2017). This too requires a PC to be connected for conversion and storage of the audio MP3 files.
  3. Super USB Cassette to MP3 Converter Capture Audio – AliExpress for US$21 (as of 2017). This claims it doesn’t require a PC to convert, it can convert the audio to MP3 on the device itself and store it to an attached USB Flash Drive, super convenient if it works as advertised.

Check and buy any one of them and you can enjoy your old songs again.

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