ION Portable USB Turntable Unboxed

I tend to check out the web site Woot.com just about everyday to see what specials they may have going. I’ve purchase a half dozen or so things from there in the last couple years. When the ION Portable USB Turntable came up for $49.00, I hopped right on it. In fact, I did a tweet on it and got a couple thank you tweets from those that follow me. They jumped on the special as well. The unit arrived a few days ago but I didn’t carve out any time to unbox it until today.



The unit was very quick to unpack and setup. I quickly installed the included software into my iBook. The software is ruthlessly simple and includes large Fisher Price like buttons. When you finish a side of the LP, the software builds the MP3 and puts it directly into iTunes.



Back with eBay was cool (1998 or so), I had purchasing some classic rock albums and some of the goofy LPs I used to listen to as a kid. It started off with a Tommy Bolin album called Teaser, then the SpiderMan Rockomic (1972 - listened to in junior high when I broke my ankle) and Jan & Dean Meet Batman (1966 - a sort of Beach Boys meet Batman). Listening to these goofy albums from my childhood brought back a lot of old memories.



The first pass at doing the SpiderMan Rockomic went smooth as can be and I listened to it passively on the built in speaker on the LP player during the capture process. However, the audio level of the created MP3 in iTunes was way too low to enjoy. That was when I looked into the manual to find out about the USB out level knob. Felt a little nervous when I noticed the knob was turned all the way up. With few other options, I decided to noodle with it. I noticed that turning the knob all the way down (to the left), the audio levels rose significantly. So the USB out level knob is wired backwards on my version and that is just fine with me. I’ve been accused of being wired backwards a time or two myself.

So another quick pass yielded better results and both MP3 captured sides of my first album sounded pretty good. I have a lot of FileMaker work to do these days and this will help keep me company during the extended hours of pixel wrangling.