» USB PhonoPlus V2

USB PhonoPlus V2 Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: This device does what it is supposed to VERY well!
Comment: The previous reviewers echo the same sentiments I have about this device. It works as advertised and gives great price/performance benefit. I have ripped many lps in the past 8 years using my Yamaha XG sound card in my desktop PC. This has worked well, but is a stationary setup. I have been on the lookout for a device that I could plug into a laptop that had a line in with a way to set the input gain to adjust the recording levels. It also needed positive gain to bring the levels of lps up to the appropriate level.

The only devices I could find were intended for musicians and included mic and instrument inputs and cost a lot of money. Many of these would also require an outboard mixer to apply positive gain - more musician's equipment.

Then I found this device. And it had more than I wanted - a phono input. Bonus!! I was skeptical about it, but I was shocked at how well it works, especially at this price point. It is a very solid metal construction with a great feeling knob to adjust the gain - with more than enough positive gain to boost lps to appropriate levels. The monitoring works great with headphones. The rubber legs keep the device from skating across your desktop. The impressions you get from the pictures are true to life.

The website does not quote Windows Vista support, but the device works very well on my Vista Basic laptop. I've successfully recorded 5 lps already!! As another reviewer found, it will generate mono recordings with Audacity out of the box. I fixed the problem by making a parameter change I found in control panel->sound on the recording tab for the device. I guess the OS defaults to this and Audacity obeys it. It seems other software programs will override this.

I am thrilled with the performance and usability of this device and would recommend it to anybody!

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Customer Rating:
Summary: USB Phono Plus 2 + CD Spin Doctor = PERFECTION
Comment: The USB Phono Plus 2 is the rare device that promised simplicity and perfection and actually delivers. It's easy to set up and even easier to use. The Audacity software that ship with it pales in comparison to Roxio's CD Spin Doctor, which I highly recommend as well. Now my LP's will live on in their digital afterlife! I cannot say enough about this product.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Best product out there for what it's intended!
Comment: My goal has always been to be able to transfer into digital format, all types of analog archives I had: vinyl, tapes, some DAT tapes, and even the audio part material I wanted to rescue from some old TV content I had on some old VHS tapes. And my constant frustration has always been the same: I had to settle with either one of the two only two options I could find in the market.
One was to go the simple way, connecting directly any of the audio equipment through the built in audio input of a computer and use its own built-in A/D converter to obtain the transfer. This method never left me satisfied because somehow at some point of this "chain" some quality of sound was alway lost (may be a stereo pin jack for the connection was not as good as using an RCA stereo cable; or bypassing a turntable through a home preamp/receiver in order to convert phono signal into line signal carried also some slight amount of sound deterioration - may be just from the fact that middle priced average home equipment just works like that; or even the computer's own built-in A/D converter may not be the best quality available out there in the market).
So my other option if I wanted to insure best sound quality possible in carrying and converting the analog sound into digital, was having to go all the way to high end professional type of equipment sound cards or external interfaces, whose cost I found practically out of range for what I wanted to do; as besides the functions I needed, these type of devices usually also include a lot of other features that are useful only for musicians or studios (like XLR type inputs and outputs, mono channels, balanced, unbalanced, MIDI connections, bus through routhers ins and outs, etc.).
So, if you feel trapped in the same kind of crossroads and you are a type of user like me with those exact same needs I have, allow me to honestly and sincerely highly recommend you ART's USB PhonoPlus V2. Being very used to permanently purchase electronics and devices on the internet, to find out late that they don't work as expected and ending up always having to return them; while skeptical though still intrigued by the features this product declared, I risked to gave it a chance and purchased it to give it a try. And to my surprise it turned out to become one of those rare finds I run into only once in a while.
This product is a gem, and the cost/benefit of what you pay for versus what you get, I can say it's the best one I've ever found out there in the market.
It comes with exactly the types of inputs that you need for these types of tasks, not more, not less. There's dedicated line in, phono in, and even Toslink digital. And it shows (actually - sounds!) that the manufacturer has picked really good components for the internal circuitry; as the sound you obtain when you digitally record in your computer, is a crystal perfect impeccable copy of whatever you can hear in the analog source that is reproduced.
The rest is all up to you in "post sound processing", depending on however you best like to do your own sound cleaning/restoration and using whatever best software suits you for your taste; but you can rest assure that at least the "raw master" digital sound format you will "capture" with this device will have nothing to envy to the one you could get using a high end recording facility.
I'd like to honestly commend the ART people for thinking, developing and putting out a product like this. Completely satisfied customer here.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Easy to use, quick solution
Comment: I LOVE this product. When I first started down the road of converting my 800+ LPs to CD, it was a major project to set up a turntable, speakers, and a receiver. It took up lots of space, and was a major contributor to dining-room-table-clutter. I didn't get very far.

Now, there's a turntable on the coffee table next to the PhonoPlus, the laptop sitting next to it and a set of headphones plugged in when I want to monitor the process. Few cables, no real clutter, and total ease of use. When I'm not working on it, I can easily move things out of the way to resume real life.

Using the enclosed Audacity software (which I have used for quite a while to edit music) is simple, but it produces monaural recordings. Instead, I record in stereo using Total Recorder (shareware that costs about $12 for an unlimited copy) and then clean up any noise and cut the recording into tracks using Audacity.

The simplicty of the process and the ease of getting going means that this time I'll actually finish getting all those records digitized.

It's a great product.

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