Alright, so most of you probably don’t have much a tape collection these days, right? I know I personally don’t, but when I saw ION’s USB turntable at an Urban Outfitters in Berkeley, I knew what I had to do: buy it and archive my entire vinyl collection.

While I haven’t archived my entire collection (yet), it has been a pretty amazing turntable to have in my small studio.

The TAPE 2 PC works the same way the USB turntable does: device actually has it’s own built-in soundcard so that there’s no need for any external interfaces or soundcards. You plug the USB into your computer and you start recording. I archive inside Audacity, so I had to change the soundcard settings, but that took all of two minutes.

That being said, I know people with large tape collections and I know for fact people are still releasing music on cassettes. So if you’re still buying tapes, you should check this thing out. It comes with software for both PC and Mac and even has the ability to record/import your tapes right into iTunes. It really doesn’t get any more convenient  than that.

Press release and links after the jump.

Cumberland, R.I. – ION Audio (www.ion-audio.com), a leader in consumer audio and entertainment gear, announces immediate availability of TAPE 2 PC, the world’s first USB dual cassette player/recorder with the ability to easily convert tapes to MP3, for use in iTunes or any iPod, with included recording software. No special drivers are needed.

 

Simply plug TAPE 2 PC into a computer using the provided USB cable and install the software to be up and running in minutes. The digital, computer copies of the archived songs can easily be transferred to an iPod or other MP3 player.

 

TAPE 2 PC includes EZ Tape Converter 2 (PC) and EZ Audio Converter (Mac), the easiest way to record and convert tapes directly to iTunes. EZ Tape Converter 2 features Gracenote® MusicID technology, which analyzes recordings and automatically retrieves album, artist and song information. EZ Audio Converter enables easy entering of track information. Now, tape collections can be digitized in just a few mouse clicks.

 

When archiving cassettes to a computer is complete, TAPE 2 PC is perfect for connecting to a stereo system using standard RCA cables for convenient cassette listening in the living room, bedroom, garage or wherever a stereo system is located. Finally, cassette recordings can be brought into the digital age and preserved.

 

TAPE 2 PC has a list price of $134.99 and is available at www.ion-audio.com .