Hi, some of you may have seen this mini review in the Security blog because I only had access to that area initially.

But that was certainly off topic so I have now transferred it to Geekend where it belongs!

 

With the 10th anniversary Elmo out of the question because it is out of stock at Wal-Mart, even online, and anyone having one for sale on Amazon is asking about $140 MORE than list price, what do you get a geek for the holidays?

Well, if he is an older geek, he probably has some vinyl sitting around (on a shelf, not covering a chair) and would convert it to MP3s if only that wasn’t such a hassle!

To the rescue comes a good quality turntable which not only plays that old vinyl through a regular stereo, it also exports digitized files directly to a USB port (doesn’t even need to be USB 2) and this one-step process makes it easy to convert that old vinyl into something you can pump into an iPod or even stick on a CD.

The manufacturer is ION and the rig will run about $125 depending on where you buy.

Some decent software comes “with” and it lets you clean up all those old records a lot of different ways, but it also lets you download your 33’s at 45rpm and then slows them down, saving a bit of time.

All in all, this worked pretty well – right out of the box I got everything set up and working in about 15 minutes, probably could have done it in 10 but I read the directions first.

So, if, like me, you used to listen to that powerful 15 watt MIT student station and want to be able to listen to old Nocturnal Aviation commercials (there is an input for old reel to reel or cassette conversion) or just groove to Firesign Theatre again [Shoes for Industry!], grab one of these turntables. For me it was a no-brainer because my old turntable had burned out so I had nothing; it is probably a good idea even if you have a turntable as long as you have a stack of old vinyl you’d like to digitize.