Digital recorder?

Hello there esteemed friends, does anyone have a recommendation for a digital music recorder available on the market that could be connected to one of our georgous amps for recording mp3 files (or better) for use in a car, or elsewhere. I’ve scoured the market and can’t come up with much at all! Thank you in anticipation.

Not sure how many in current production, but a few mentioned in this post

eBay had a few listed a week or so ago

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Not sure of this helps but I have ripped my cd and downloads to mp3 format on the pc. You can then copy to a usb drive and plug in to the car player. Depends obviously on the car players inputs. The other way is via sd card or even your mobile phone and headphone output direct to the car player. Older BMW ( 2013) dog car even has this.

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A Marantz PMD661 is a cracking good digital recorder and can record analogue sources to either 16bit or up to 24/96, which is usually more than enough. They’re relatively cheap and easy to find secondhand in the usual places. All you need is a Chord or Naim tape patch lead (and maybe an Audioquest 3.5mm to RCA adaptor), a set of four Eneloop batteries and an SD card and you’re good to go. You can cut and edit in the recorder, but I usually found it easier to use Audacity on the laptop.

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Thanks very much for the input young man, I’ll check this gear out.

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Thank you, unfortunately the pc and hifi in our place are in separate rooms and on different floors, but I’ll think it through again.

Thanks for that advice Richard, I’ll check these machines out.

I’m confused, I have tons of ripped CD’s on my iPhone. I plug the phone in or just stream Bluetooth, Apple CarPlay

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Denon, TEAC, and Tascam (Tascam is made by TEAC and simply the same model with rack mount ears) are all good and affordable. ADCs of studio quality are in fact very affordable. Completely different from DACs which cost a fortune.

FWIW, I use a TEAC SD-500HR as a solution to sticking my vinyl on the NAS.

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It sounds like you are describing a player not a recorder. Does your car not have the ability to play mp3s from a usb stick or memory card?

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Zoom (low-cost) and Sound Devices (low-noise) is among the more popular if you want a complete portable. But in your case you probably dont care about the noise-level/quality of the mic preamps so no need to pay for micpres designed to record frogs at 300 meters :slight_smile: You could probably get away with even a USB/lightning audio interface connected to your phone. Go to a modern instrument/homestudio store so you can have some hands-on and get a feel for the quality - there are many makes and devices in this segment.

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Thank you, yes i had seen the tascam/Denon stuff so i think I’ll look a bit deeper.

Yeah, call me old fashioned! But I prefer a good old rack mounted unit with better features and controls, or at least usable with my podgy digits!

No, defo a recorder, the car can play from usb, it’s own harddrive, or blue tooth, but I would like to record from vinyl etc to put that in the car too!

Yes, i get you, but there’s vinyl etc that I would like to have recordings of for the car, garage etc, and possibly even radio where allowed!

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I use a Roland R-05 to digitise vinyl, using the tape out in the pre amp.
Does a good job and is well built, bought it on eBay for £40, but it does have a small ding on the back and not the latest model.

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I also use a Roland R-05 and am very pleased with it. I have recorded some of my vinyl using the high resolution WAV setting and am very impressed by how good it sounds.
I also use it for live-from-the-radio recordings.

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@TheKevster bought one recently, cannot remember the make or model?

What about products from KORG? They are a bit pricey but I will also be interested in a transfer of vinyl to digital. DS-DAC-10R + AudioGate 4

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Great! All of a sudden thanks to guys like you sharing great info and knowledge there is a choice out there after all!