USB turntables - any good?

[TheVoice]

Hi all,

Hope you can help me out. My step-dad's birthday is approaching and he's made it reasonably clear to my Mum that he'd like one of those USB turntables, for copying his music from vinyl. Now, we've had a bit of a look around on the net and it seems like they're mostly the same. One thing I did notice is that they all come with the same software - Audacity. This seems just a bit 'cheap' to me; I've used Audacity for a couple of years now for music stuff and it's a good program, but it's also open-source and free. I'd have thought that when paying over £100 for a piece of equipment, it'd come with something a bit more functional.

Can anyone offer any insights into whether they're worth it? I pointed out that he'd achieve the same effect with the turntable he's already got, and a cable to connect it to his soundcard. Audacity is readily available and he's even got Nero Wave Editor already, so he's sorted in that respect.

Just seems to me like it's a high price and a lot of effort for putting vinyl to MP3. If it came with proper software that managed the songs you're converting properly (as well as removing noise) I'd say it's worth the money. Is there any software that might make the entire process a bit easier?

Thanks for any advice.

 

[mosfet]

I'd get him a proper sound card with line in and a nice preamp, or one with phono inputs and an internal preamp.

He'll get better quality out of a professional record deck and a nice card than one of these gimmicks.

Something like an M-Audio Audiophile 2496 would do, it comes bundled with Ableton too if he'd prefer that to Audacity. It'll accept line-level inputs from the back of his Hi-Fi stack.