Software and Hardware Reviews

ADS Tech Instant Music Box

by David Watters

posted 5/21/06

What a surprise at the May meeting to win the ‘out-of-the-hat' drawing of a neat analog audio converter for making CD's and MP3's from old LP vinyl disk records and tapes.  This little nugget is the ADS Tech  Instant Music device which connects to the computer and draws its power through a standard USB fitting.

It is a stereo unit whose rear deck provides two sets of RCA jacks,  left and right, input and output, respectively.  There are no mechanical switches on this handsome white console – all the switching is done via the software – installed from an accompanying CD.

The ADS Tech Instant Music converter provides excellent throughput with no noticeable distortion or noise insertion.  Of course, it doesn't take out the scratchy noise from your old sound source, LP's or tape.  As expected, you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

Please bear in mind that you must have a pre-amplifier to drive this unit if a vinyl record turntable is used as a source.  In my case I use a five-channel stereo mixer unit with VU meters and preamplifiers.

This converter filled the ‘missing link' in my audio production ensemble.  In my case, I use two mini-disk recorder/playback devices and a microphone mixed into the ADS Tech Instant Music converter.

Another serendipitous surprise popped up when I found that the ADS converter has S/PDIF optical jacks as alternative input and output options.  This delight fit in well with the mini-disk players.

My only problem occurred when trying to install the software into my laptop.  It just wouldn't read the installation CD.  Perhaps the CD recording level did not have enough ‘punch'.  I got around this problem by making a CD copy on the big desktop computer – and thereby creating readable installation software.

All-in-all, I would recommend this little adjunct to your audio system.  Searching the WEB shows the price range to be about forty bucks.

note: The ADS Tech Instant Music is the small white unit sitting on the mixer. For more information visit the ADS Tech website.