Jensen Portable Cassette Player and Recorder - AC-DC

This is an excellent product, for this price! I am totally satisfied with the performance and quality of this inexpensive: 'Recorder'. My only suggestion for: "THE ULTIMATE".. in sound quality...is to "cover/muffle" the top-of-the entire Recorder; after pressing the "Record" buttons. (when using the plug-in microphone) This enables you to produce a better-quality/clearer result. With no: INTERFERRING noises; emanating from the machine itself. But other than that minor: "tweaking"....I enjoy this product immensely. I highly-recommend it.

DO THIS IF YOU WANT A GOOD SOUNDING RECORDING!! This 2 minute read will save you HOURS OF TIME....I wish some one wrote this before I started on this project. I bought this due to the positive reviews and that it is made by Jensen and they are supposed to be an audio company right...car stereos anyone. Anyway, I have about 30 cassette tapes from the 1990s that have interviews, my kids talking and playing guitar with friends. I used a $50 boom box with the worlds worst mic(built in to the boombox) for some of the recordings so I did not have the best equipment at the time and did not realize that I would be messing with these 30 years later. I am a computer graphics person, musician and a semipro photographer...so I use computers and software a lot. I also tried the best rated usb cassette recorder that amazon sells the Cassette to MP3 Converter, BlumWay Portable Cassette Recorder Player, It was hard to use and would not record to the usb after 2 tapes...sent it back. Do not waste your time with it if you value your cassettes. The Jensen is about $8 more, solidly built and will last. SO buy it as it is easy to operate and you can see the tape moving...big buttons...and it just works like it is supposed to. Even your grandmother can use it. It is the best alternative for doing this project...I spent HOURS trying to find the best option and even considered buying a $200 cassette deck of ebay, but I did not want the cost and the hassle of setting up a big unit that I would not use again once the tapes were recorded. I used the Jensen with a VTOP USB2.0 Analog Audio Capture Card Device Compatible for Windows (price $19). Works much better than the headphone jack. This plugs in to my windows laptop and makes it easy. You can use the headphone jack but this picks up a lot of random noise. The recorder takes 4 C batteries and also comes with a AC power plug. So here is the IMPORTANT part...If you use the power plug(wall outlet) you will get very loud humming/buzzing or electrical interference when you try to listen/record through the computer. So loud it will ruin your recordings. I tried multiple plugs and computers in my house and all had the hum(it is a grounding issue with the recorder itself and it picks up electrical interference which will end up in your recording) It will not do this if you use the batteries and the recording sounds fine. I have a lot of tapes and did not want to mess with buying C batteries or getting a rechargeable kit of batteries($25more). The solution and the answer is this problem is a noise isolator... "Smof Ground Loop Noise Isolator for Car Audio/Home Stereo System (Eliminate The Buzzing Noise Completely) with 3.5mm Audio Cable, Black Ground Loop Noise Isolator for Car Audio/Home Stereo System" The cost is $10 and it removed ALL of the electrical noise and the recording is as good as the tape! If you do not use one of these you will be frustrated and sorry that you are trying to record all those tapes with poor sound quality...the buzzing is so loud that you can not listen to the recording. Any noise isolator will work and a $30 one is not any better than a $10 one as they all do the same thing. So for about $50 I have a good system to digitize my tapes. NO it is twice as much as the cheap China usb recorder, but I know that the time spent recording will not be wasted and the recordings will be as good as the tape....and you will SAVE TIME in the end. I use adobe audacity to capture the recordings as I have a subscription for my work, but most any program will work. A good FREE software is audacity sound software.(audacityteam.org). It is pretty basic and easy to use. When I put a tape in the Jensen to record, I set a timer on the software for the length of the tape, usually 46 minutes for my 90 min tapes, so the recording will auto stop when the tape is over. That way I just load a tape and hit record and it stops recording when the timer is up(I put one in and go to bed). It keeps you from making hours long recordings that you have to edit later....no timer and you have to turn off the record button or sit by the Jensen to stop it(again a time issue if you have lots of tapes). Audicity also has a timer mode and a quick google search will tell you how to set it. ** Also save your recordings as wav files for the original and make a mp3 copy of the file to share. **Also, do a 1minute test recording before you start to record the entire tape so you can set the volume on the Jensen correctly as it acts as the gain for the recording. Failure to do this can result in a recording to low or too high and both will sound bad ***So if your cassette tapes are important to you, do it right the first time and spend a few $$.

For listening to Language tapes and being able to hear pronunciations perfectly this player I am VERY happy with. With language tapes you usually need to quickly rewind back a few seconds to re-hear certain parts and this player does a pretty good job. Then the pause button to give you more time to respond to phrases is just perfect. I found that I could use my left hand thumb to press play & rewind quickly and then use my right hand thumb to pause the tape while my mind processes the newest information where I need to reply put loud so that the tape does not get too far in front of me. So yes you are working two handed and it is very time efficient. If any of you are doing the same I also found that when the pronunciation is sketchy I could use my iphone to listen to the tape and write out the sentence so I could see what is going on with text. Fantastic ! Anyway, the unit is made of strong plastic as the old days of solid metal are over. The only part of the recorder that seems delicate and might break easy is the slide out carrier handle which is why I dont give a solid 5 rating. Music enthusiasts should consider something else as the intent of this machine is not for high quality audiophile. At highest volume the speaker does rattle the sound a bit BUT things are still completely acceptable. Stay away from those fancy blue-tooth with radio option products if your main reason is to listen to or record tapes. I returned one already and wrote a review. I found the sound quality for the professionally produced tapes I was listening to was really horrible.

So far this is a good buy.

Then you have to waste gas to return that cheap junk. What an *immediate* piece of trash. Opened the box less than an hour ago and already packing it up to return. The player stops after a few seconds. No matter if you play store bought tape, if you’re playing a recorded tape, or if you are trying to record a tape. Brand new tapes, older tapes, this player hates them all. Tried making sure it’s clean, tried different batteries, tried the AC plug, checked the tapes, made sure it wasn’t damp made sure it was level, nothing is wrong except that it’s cheap junk. Cheap isn’t the problem, it’s the fact that it’s junk that doesn’t work. What a total waste. (Did not order used. This is the “brand new” option. Have no clue where all those great reviews are coming from.)

It exceeds all expectations in size, portability, looks, and quality of sound. I like that they have an extra mic as well as the one built in. I am recording songs that Lord has placed in my heart over the last 46 years to share with my children and anyone who will want to listen long after I am gone. Did I mention that it is easy to use. You don't have to be tech savvy. Lol