EZcap Cassette to MP3 Converter to USB Flash Drive Review

EZcap Cassette to MP3 Converter to USB Flash Drive Review

Buy it at Amazon: EZcap Cassette to MP3 Converter to USB Flash Drive [Affiliate Link]

Takeaway: Easy to use, clear audio, little digital distortion, not compatible w/all USB drives.

You'll receive the cassette recorder, 36" USB power cable, a set of headphones, and a set of instructions. This unit can help you convert all your old cassette tapes to digital files that you can save right to a USB stick, without any computer or additional software necessary. The unit has no internal battery and runs off 2 AA batteries or you can use external power using the included USB cable. The cassette player is designed like a classic cassette player. On top you've got a play button, stop button, fast forward and rewind, a loop switch that will automatically switch to the other side of the tape when the current side reaches its end, and a direction button to switch from side A to B and vice versa without taking the tape out of the player. On the right hand side, you have the analog volume control wheel, the USB output port, headphone port, and the eject slider. When you pull the slider down, the cassette plate opens to the left. In the bottom right is the door to the battery bay for loading the 2 AA batteries (not included) to power this without a cable.

On the back you have payback controls to play MP3s from an external USB device plugged into the USB port, so you could also use this as an MP3 player. I found that the port doesn't recognize every thumb drive and it may depend on the size, for example, it would not record to my 32 GB drive but it did to a 500 MB drive. This converter has an auto mode that can automatically detect the breaks in between songs and split them into separate files. However, I found that while the mode correctly split the tracks into different files, oftentimes it missed the first second of each song. It's a bit cleaner to record everything into 1 big file and chop it up manually on the computer later.

The unit did a nice job with the audio conversion in general. The resulting file is clean, clear, and accurate to what you'd hear if you were to just play the cassette and listen to it. However, you can tell the is a little bit of digital compression and occasionally digital artifacts will be present in the sound (bright metallic sounding garble). Also, when converting from analog to digital, any imperfection in the tape will end up in your final recording including pops and crackles from the medium. This player records in real time, so if you have a 2 hour tape, you'll need to allow it to record for the full two hours to capture everything. Overall, however, this does exactly what I needed it to and it's a great tool for preserving old cassettes without the need for software or a computer.

Buy it at Amazon: EZcap Cassette to MP3 Converter to USB Flash Drive [Affiliate Link]