Arrela Portable Ezcap USB Portable Cassette to MP3 Converter Tape-to-MP3 Player Through USB Flash Disk with Headphones

If you're old enough to remember Sony Walkman cassette players this device is very similar in quality, size and operation. It has the added feature of being able to record to a thumb drive. Treat it carefully and it will hold up. As others have reported, the broken English that the instructions are written in make understanding them a bit of a challenge but after a couple of readings they begin to make sense. Expect to experience a period of trial-and-error time playing with the controls and recording before you're comfortable. I also suggest reading the Q&A's for tips on how to make it do what you expect it to. I'm recording many of my old cassettes (approx. 75) so haven't used the battery power option yet. Nor have I tried using the playback from the thumb drive yet (this is not a feature I would probably use anyway). I've hooked up the device to external speakers using the headphone jack so I can monitor what's being recorded. The device has "hung up" a couple of times after moving my thumb drive back and forth to my computer, never while recording. To un-hang it I simply unplug and replug the USB cable. I think this is because I forgot to turn off the recording before unplugging the thumb drive. I started out by using the Auto recording mode to separate tracks but discovered it didn't always do that correctly. I then used the Manual mode, which copies all songs into one track, and then use Audacity (free download) to label and separate the tracks correctly. I them import them into iTunes on my computer. Next I plan to try recording from the device using the USB connector for the thumb drive directly to my computer using a USB cable. Hope that works. Sound quality is acceptable to me (pre-recorded cassette tapes were never known for their audiophile quality). Recording and using Audacity is a little labor intensive but well worth the effort. I didn't want to just toss my cassettes in the trash. This device meets my expectations. I gave it four stars only because of the poorly written instructions.

The Arrela Portable Ezcap USB Portable Cassette arrived in a timely fashion and was well packaged. I found the directions were difficult to read due to grammatical mistakes. The device is well made. It would be optimum to have an on and off switch rather than pulling out the AA batteries to turn the machine off. I could not figure out how to open the cassette slot and had to go back to the directions to find the answer. It is actually easy to open.That being said, it is easy to record cassettes to MP3. (Be sure to record in Hi Volume) The sound of the Arrela was excellent on Stereo cassettes. The vocals on Split-Track cassettes were diminished by the background music. Most of my cassettes are Split-Track.I do not know how download the MP3s onto iTunes. I will adjust my rating once I can hear the final product.

I got this to transfer my wife's audio book cassette tapes to digital form. It works, but not very elegantly, and the sound quality is so-so. Of course it takes real-time to convert tapes to mp3 and you must monitor the recording because it does not automatically stop recording when one side of the tape ends. You will end up with a long silent part on the end which you will have to edit out with other software.Uses batteries quickly if using it to listen to tapes. There is also a constant whine while listening. Also there is a bright green light that is on constantly which you can use for a nightlight if you listen to tapes at night. That may be part of why it uses batteries quickly. You can get a USB cord to use auxiliary power to run it and it works fine.

First impression is good; if anything changes I'll come back and update.I took out some old tapes from music lessons 20 years ago, of my teacher laying down tunes for me to learn, that I wanted to recover, stuck one into the machine, popped on a flash drive, and puzzled over the directions till I figured out to press play and then the record button. Basically went off and left it, came back later and turned it off. I had files with long stretches of silence at the end but that was easy enough to snip off in Audacity which is free. Quickly listened to the beginning of one and it sounded good - as good as the original for sure. I can go back via Audacity at my leisure and either snip it into individual tunes, or just create an index so I know where to skip to if I want a particular item.One thing I did to be sure I had as few problems as possible: I put the tapes into my cassette deck in my stereo system and fast-forwarded them all the way through and then rewound them back. That way if there were any sticky spots they'd be cleared up before putting them into the cheaper mechanism here. I don't know if it helped but I am doing fine with this so far. It's not like any of my cassettes were CD quality in the first place so this seems to be a good solution to retrieve some of these irreplaceable recordings. It's not heavy duty so who knows how long it will last, I may have to buy another one before I make it through my huge piles of cassettes, but I plan to treat it gently.

Mine plays tapes at the right speed, tested with USB power. It is holding up well over a couple months. I have only tested the MP3 capability, some pretty noticeable hiss between songs, but it worked. I love the USB power cord, amazingly useful and saves AA batteries. I just switched from USB power to AA power and the volume was greatly reduced. With certain headphones I get a terrible hum at volumes above 50%.My main issue with it, where it doesn't play at the start of each side of the tape. I can hold the play button down for a few seconds to get through it, or fast forward a bit. I just contacted the company about this today. It isn't a deal breaker.

Useless product