Customer Reviews

Ion USB Turntable with Built-in CD Recording

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

The ION LP turntable was much better than I thought it would be for the following reasons:

1) First of all, the sound through the headphones was nice, full, and deep - much better than I expected.
2) Recording directly to a CD made it much easier than dealing with software since I don't have the time to figure out how to effectively use the software (maybe later I will take the time to see if it makes it any better).
3) Recording to the CD was simple because the tracks are automatically separated. It also allows to manually separate tracks if for some reason the turntable missed separating a track (especially when an artist does not space out time between songs because they want the effect of a continual track).
4) It comes with a cover which many others don't (this may seem not important but it really is if you live in an environment where dust is prevalent).
5) Here's what I didn't expect which was a bonus - it comes with an internal hard drive to be able to record around 2 albums. This is very helpful because it allows you to correct any mistakes or skips that occurred before recording it on a CD. It also allows you to rearrange or erase any of the tracks very easily before recording it on a CD, so you can personalize your tracks compared to the album in a simple, easy way.
6) I am a musician and audiophile, so the most important thing to me is the quality of the sound that is recorded on the CD. Upon hearing the CD through my car CD player, the sound remained full, rich, and deep. This was very pleasing to me as I have tried other brands and the sound was always a disappointment, being very thinny and poor in quality.
6) Finally, the price on Amazon, along with free shipping makes it worth the money. I compared it to Brookstone which would have charged me $200 more in the store.

I personally believe that ION got all of the best features placed into this model which was more than I had expected. This is a good buy and the best model I have experienced so far. It is a 5 star product!

The Ion LP 2 CD converter is a fairly straightforward machine, which means there is no reason why it shouldn't work consistently and reliably. Unfortunately, mine started failing immediately after I purchased it in April 2009. I got an "Error: System reset" message after trying to burn my first CD. I called Tech Support and they walked me through the reset process. Then, I began to get "Error: Track less than 3 seconds" messages. The machine was now inserting short tracks, which meant the burning process would not work. So, I switched off the automatic track inserter. I then started getting "Burn failure" messages. Once again I called Tech Support. (By now, they knew me by name.) After a week or two of fiddling around (by which point, the Ion was rejecting 90% of my blanks, but formatting them so I couldn't use them for anything else), I sent the Ion back. The company paid for the shipping, of course, and promised I would have the repaired machine back in 7 or 8 weeks.

It's been 3 months since I sent it back, and I'm still waiting. According to customer service, they'll get around to looking at my Ion "soon." But given the backup in orders, and the huge quantity of machines that have been sent back for repair (it seems quite a few of them have similar problems), I don't expect to see it before September. And when (if) it does return, I would not be the slightest bit surprised if I got an "Error: You've Wasted Your Money" message straight off the bat.

Update: I hate being right all the time. My Ion was returned after exactly four months with this note attached: "Tested extensively. Ran for 3+ hours. Not be able to recreate customer's complaint." I was able to recreate my complaint in less than a minute. I put the Ion back together, recorded an album and the very first CD I tried to burn yielded the same "System Error CD Write Failure" message I had been getting before. I called Tech Support. After verifying that I was using the right kind of CD (audio -R)they had me reset the machine. The second CD also produced the same error message. In short, the machine still doesn't work. (And why should it? Nobody be able to fix it.) Customer service says they'll have some new stock around October. My next prediction: The new machine will perform as badly as the old one.

Further update: Well, I was right. Again. The same broken turntable was returned to me in October. The repair people did not even test it to see if the CD burner worked. According to customer service, I will have to send the machine back again, but nobody seems to know when the new stock will arrive. I feel like I'm trapped in some weird existentialist play--Waiting for the Ion...

THE SAGA CONTINUES: After 7 months a new Ion was finally shipped to me. I assembled it and to my delight, it worked!! For a week I blissfully converted my LPs without a hitch. (Or nearly. Like the last Ion, the automatic tracking did not work on classical LPs. But, hey, I could live with that!) Then, after successfully burning about 15 CDs I got the "CD write failure" message. It was like a bad dream. Undaunted, I dashed out and bought a different brand of CD-Rs. (SONY Music. I splurged.) But these wouldn't burn either. Just to make absolutely certain it wasn't SONY's (or Memorex's) fault, I stuck one of the new SONYs in my computer and cut a CD. No problem. I called Tech Support. They advised that I reformat. (Turn off the Ion. Press record and erase simultaneously and then turn on the Ion--Wait until the message bar indicates that the machine has been reformatted.) The reformatting didn't help. I dashed out and bought yet another batch of blanks (Memorex CD-R Music). Then I turned off the machine and let it sit. Before using it, I reformatted the Ion, then I turned it off and reset the defaults twice. (Turn off machine. Press Record and Play, then turn the machine on, and hold for ten seconds. Turn off. Then turn on again). Now it's working! Apparently, these machines don't like it when you switch brands. I'm keeping my fingers crossed...

I bought the LP to CD recorder not knowing what to expect as far as recording quality. The Ion Recorder is easy to record and easy to record to cd. No hookup is needed to a computer. The Stereo of the LP is the same as the burnt cd. The imperfections on the vinyl is transfered to the cd. The recorder is very well worth the extra money I had to pay instead of getting a cheaper model.

I bought this as a gift so this is largely second-hand information, not my own personal experience. i bought it for my folks who aren't at all technologically savvy and who don't own a computer. I knew the machine would have to be very easy to use in order for them to benefit. They're smart, just no tech experience. They succeeded in completing a recording about 2 hours after opening it. i didn't see them open it or get it set up, but my mom said it wasn't hard. So I can recommend it for the late 60's set or your non-technological parents. Shipping was fast; the box was larger and heavier than I thought but I haven't seen the item to know what the machine weighs--an older person might have difficulty lifting the box in from the outside if you send it as a gift. Not sure why it was so heavy. And if it isn't obvious--you have to play the whole record to actually record it--there's no fast forward technology in vinyl.

I bought two of these for a big record transfer project for a school. What a disappointment! ION is also the same company as Numark and the quality of their products has really declined. These things are cheaply made and all plastic. The "nu groove" cartridge and stylus that comes with it is useless junk and sounds terrible. I had to go buy a replacement stylus as soon as I received the unit. Even their sales department recommends upgrading to a better stylus!

Within about 50 records, one turntable started to break down! The speed began fluctuating, and the output jacks became loose and started buzzing.

I got the run around with Tech support. Emails were never returned, and I had to wait on hold a long time, only for them to give me lame things to try. Finally they admitted the unit was faulty, and set up a return.

GET THIS FOLKS, INSTEAD OF REPLACING IT, THEY SEND IT OUT TO RENO NEVADA FOR REPAIR AND IT TAKES 7 to 8 WEEKS!! Which is useless! They told me they didn't have any new product to replace it with. Probably because they are discontinuing it because it's junk!

This is buyers remorse in a very big way, don't waste your time or money!

I've been having a lot of fun with this turntable. It does everything it is supposed to.

A word to the wise ... turn off auto track split - it will start new tracks when you don't want it to.

Very easy operation - choose your disc, press the RECORD button to start the recording process in PAUSE mode, test the recording levels - play the disc from the beginning and press PLAY / PAUSE to start recording. Press PLAY / PAUSE again to pause recording when the track is finished. Press SPLIT TRACK to start a new track in memory, recording will still be in the pause mode. Choose your next disc - repeat... until you have all the tracks you want.

You can rearrange or delete tracks before burning the CD. When you have all the tracks as you want you can then burn to CD.

Another word to the wise - read the pamphlet before trying to burn to disc. I generally do not read manuals, and I could not figure how to get the music from internal memory burned on to a disc - but I looked it up and felt somewaht stupid when I read how to do it.

Also, on the front of the unit by the CD tray, it says you can only use MUSIC CD-R discs, but that is not true, I have burned quite a few regular CD-R discs. The pamphlet also states you can use regular CD-R.

The only problem I have had with the unit is the occasional extra track inserted when things get too quiet. This unit could use a combine track function to combat this problem. This is why I turn off auto track splitting. And you must do this every time you turn the machine on - it doesn't remember the setting.

Overall, the unit is very well built, perfoms flawlessly and I have had no problems recording to memory or to disc. The turntable also sounds better than doing this with my Audio Technica turntable hooked up to the stereo and dedicated CD recorder - there is better bass response with the ION.

Setup was fairly straightforward. If you've never set up this type of turntable before, balancing the tone arm may seem a little daunting - so read the instructions carefully.

This unit is a great idea which has been carried out nearly perfectly. I'd recommend this to anyone who has a vinyl collection they'd like to digitize.

The CD's that you burn with this will, however, still have the beginning lead in and ending lead out sounds since you have to start recording before the music actually starts to get the beginning of each track. The manual track split function combined with the delete track function can remedy this if that bothers you. If you do use these functions to get rid of extra lead in / lead out time, be sure you delete the extra noise tracks. It will not let you burn a CD if there is any track in memory of less than 4 seconds in length.

There are RCA Jacks on the back for output to an amp, or input from any line-level source, such as tape deck, CD player, etc. You can choose to record from the Line In source by flipping a swith on teh unit. I have not used the USB function on the turntable, nor the software that came with it as I have my own music software. It does come with the free Audacity software, which I've read is very good and updated frequently.

I was a little hesitant to purchase this after reading some of the problems people had, but the good reviews far exceeded the bad ones, and I decided to go ahead and buy this unit. I am glad I did.

Have fun!

Anthony

This is so easy to set up and operate my 6 years old daughter could set it up. When you set it up don't forget to wrap the drive belt under the bottom of the turntable around the little knob if you don't the turn table will not turn. The sound of the finished cd is awesome you can even mix different songs from different LP's. I even hooked up cassette tapes and recorded to cd awesome and easy. Quality of sound A++ and besides my very very LARGE collection of albums and tapes were just sitting there. It not very reasonable to try to buy them again on cd. Straight out the box on the table in 15min at the most your making digital quality cd's of your favorite music. WOW did I go back down memory lane from the 60's to the 90's WOW I love this dohickie!

I have had this turntable/cd burner for about one month at this writing. I have recorded 20 LPs into the on board hard drive and then burned 10 cds thus far. The machine is easy to learn and easy to use. I have read other reviews and some of the people who have purchased this machine have had some problems with the cartridge balance and hum. I have not had any such problems. If you follow the directions closely you will be able to balance the cartridge arm properly and as long as you plug the machine into a grounded outlet you should have no hum. The machine has thus far worked exactly as it should have. The fidelity is clear and therefore you won't need to purchase an expensive cartridge for it.

Let me tell you , it doesn't get any easier than this ! I bought a usb turntable that works with your computer , and after about a month of trying to figure out how to use it , I gave up . Then I saw this machine . I LOVE IT !You can record and edit your tunes in the internal flash drive , and when you have it like you want it , push one button and bingo ! High quality cd's that sound great ! And you can use your computer to clean up pops and hiss if you want to . If you want to archive your vinyl , this is what you want !!!

If you've ever used a cassette tape recorder to tape record albums, you will be right at home with this product. It will convert your old LPs in to CDs or MP3s, and the recording process is almost identical to the process used by the old tape recorders. This is good and bad - I bought one of these for my Dad (78 yrs young) for Christmas so he can save and listen to his collection of literally hundreds of jazz recordings, some so old they are mono or "hi fidelity" recordings. I spent hours teaching him how to use it, and as of today I have no idea if he was able to continue to burn CDs after I returned to my home across the country. Here's the deal: you have to learn to push a few buttons, insert a blank CD, and cue the record in the proper order. I can't remember the exact procedure now, but the idea is that you insert the blank CD, cue the record in a "sample" mode so that you can set the recording level with digital bars that graphically indicate the recording level (it helps if you know the loudest part of a record so you can set the max sound level at that portion of the recording), then you recue the record (lower the tone arm at the beginning), and when the needle pops into the groove, you press another button to start the actual recording. It will automatically separate your tracks, but you have to pause recording at the end of the first side of the record when you turn it over or else you will have a long silence in your recording that lasts as long as it took to flip it. So making a CD is not a simple procedure (insert a cd, play a record, and walk away expecting it to spit out a perfect CD). It takes some practice. But if your are willing to learn how to use it, this is an awesome product.