The Select LP is a turntable from ION Audio that can vinyl albums to digital music via USB to a PC or Mac. Credit: InMusic Brands, Inc.
A reader, Barry, writes, "I'm a baby boomer with 1,000+ albums, 500+ CDs and about 150 cassettes. What is the best way to store/record this music for home use and for use when traveling? I'm especially interested in options outside of Apple equipment/iTunes."
There are plenty of devices, such as USB turntables at about $100 from companies such as ION Audio, that can capture music from your collection. But is it worth the time and effort? CDs don't take long to convert (you can use Windows Media Player), but cassettes and LPs take much longer and may require additional editing time with software to break up those albums into individual tracks, filter the sound to reduce noise, name them and export them in the proper format.
This could be a major, labor-intensive project; to do it all is going to take weeks, if not months of your time. If most of the music you own is pretty mainstream, you may want to consider a streaming service such as Spotify ($10 a month, or free with ads), which will save you all that ripping time and allow you access to nearly all the music you already own (plus a lot more). You can download music for offline listening to if you’re a subscriber to your computer or mobile device/phone.
One other option might be to rip the CDs (less labor intensive), but re-purchase your favorite LPs and cassettes from a service such as Amazon MP3, which often discounts whole albums to $5 or less. It would save you the trouble and the audio quality is likely to be much better.
You just have to decide which is more valuable: your time or the money you could spend for a more convenient solution.
In this space every week, we’ll define a tech term, offer a timely tip or answer questions about technology from readers. Email ogallaga@statesman.com.
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