I hoisted myself up on top of the down featherbed last night, and pulled the down comforter over me. I was smothered in down and was probably warmer than a Canada goose! In a couple of hours I woke up feeling like I was in the tropics, so off came the comforter. I usually toss that at night and just sleep under a sheet - I have no heat in the bedroom, so you can imagine how chilly it can get, but I sleep warm. The featherbed is overkill, and my mattress is so comfortable just as it is, so I think I'm going to remove the featherbed and save it for the truck camper. No way will I ever be able to get the feathers compressed and rolled back into the bag it came in though.
Have any readers tried to convert old cassette tapes to CD's? There are various devices out there ranging from about $60 and up into the hundreds, that will do the conversion, or you can send them to a service that converts them for about $10 a tape. At that rate it would be much cheaper to buy the device and do it yourself. My problem is the wide range of devices and what they do or don't do - I just want plain and simple conversion so I can listen to favorite old tapes. I'm not trying to get them to sound like they were recorded yesterday. Some of the best music is on tapes that have all kinds of sounds in the background, i.e., Jerry Garcia's "Pizza Tapes".
Speaking of quality of recording I have read several articles lately about how the old vinyl recordings are superior to the newer and more perfect CD's. I wonder if you take out all the imperfections you are left with a sound so perfect as to be sterile? It's sort of like the difference in the sounds from a saxaphone or guitar that are electrified as compared to acoustic instruments. I like the little squeaks, and especially on the sax you can actually hear "the breath of life".
Back to converting old tapes, I guess my best bet is to find someone with an old boom box (or buy one myself) that can play the tapes as well as record them to CD. Those old boxes were so big and unwieldy, and I know I've gotten rid of a few when I was downsizing a couple of times in my life. It just goes to show that no matter what you throw away or otherwise dispose of, you will eventually have a need for it.
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You probably have a freecycling chapter in your area. You could post a wanted post there for an old boom box like you described. Maybe you'll be lucky.
ReplyDeleteI'm the same with our down mattress topper. Sometimes its too warm for me to have the down comforter over me too. We have the same setup in our RV too.
ReplyDeleteI have one of those "boom boxes", don't know if it will record to a CD, it does play CD's and tapes.
ReplyDeleteI have endless hours & hours of cassette music I taped off CD's back in the 80's. Two summers ago I found a boom box at a Thrift Store & while home in Bayfield my morning showers are always accompanied by cassette music from that old boom box which now lives in our bathroom. Wonder if there would be any way to get that music into my new IPod. Hmmmmmm.
ReplyDeleteThis may not work for you, but I have been able to find a lot of my favorites already on cds. I got most of them off of eBAy. I have never tried to record any to cd, but sounds like it may be complicated. The empty cds aren't cheap either. Not good ones anyway.
ReplyDeleteI'm in the process of digitizing all of my media (vinyl albums, cassettes, VHS, CDs and DVDs). For audio cassettes I purchased the Pyle Home USB Cassette Player PL5CSUB from Amazon. It did the job flawlessly.
ReplyDeleteThe easiest software to use is Acoustica Spin-It-Again. It's a Windows program, and I run Linux. Linux has a windows emulator called wine and Spin-It-Again runs flawlessly under. All of may audio cassettes are now converted. I've held onto the device in case I uncover anymore cassettes squirreled away in the odd corner.
Good Luck.
I just use a Sony Walkman, You can use the simplest tape drive out there that has decent heads and motor. You don't need any audio power out to speak of as all you really need out is at the pre amp level. As I say I have done several for the wife with just a Walkman and freeware. I can't imagine why any one would buy something special for this task.
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