The $150 PlusDeck2 is a cassette deck the size of an internal CD-ROM drive that pops into any desktop PC’s 5.25-inch drive bay. It turns tapes into MP3’s – or, for true retro music fans, record MP3’s onto blank cassettes. Yes, you read that correctly. Check out the picture below:

It’s best feature? Why, validation for saving all my tapes all these years of course! As the NY Times put it, “pack rats who saved hundreds of tapes, to the annoyance of their significant others, will suddenly seem to be masters of foresight.”

So very true. I just moved apartments a few months back and lugged all my tapes uptown, not even really knowing why, expect for the fact that I just couldn’t throw them away. I must have over 125 great albums on tape that I’m just dying to convert to digital. I have tons mix tapes that I made through the years, like some off of Z-100 full off funny songs like “New Kids Got Run Over By A Reindeer” along with various “High 5 at 9” countdowns from the early 90’s. I have a tape of me, age 4, reading a book and me, age 3, setting up blocks and them knocking them down (I wanted to hear how loud the crash sounded). I have an audio journal from a ski trip that I took with my aunt, uncle and cousins in the early 90’s which to is me is hysterical. Basically, there is a virtual treasure trove of music and audio now sitting at my fingertips and I cannot wait to get this device and convert these babies into mp3s. I need to order this ASAP.