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ART USB Phono Plus Preamp

The USB Phone Plus acts as an interface between your computer and a wide variety of analog and digital sources. The analog inputs are switchable between phono and line level signals and a low-cut filter removes rumble and wind noise. The front gain trim control and signal/clip LED allow you to optimize the A/D for a wide range of input sources. The front panel USB monitor/headphone jack and the optical output on the rear panel can monitor audio output from your computer. The built-in low-noise phono preamp circuit conforms to the RIAA standard. The line output jacks are always connected to the input preamp's signal for source monitoring. Learn More...

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Overall User Ratings

Overall:
* * * * * * . . . . 6 out of 10
Features:
* * * * * * * . . . 7 out of 10
Quality:
* * * * * * . . . . 6 out of 10
Value:
* * * * * . . . . . 5 out of 10
I Want It:
* * * * * . . . . . 5 out of 10
Sound:
* * * * * . . . . . 5 out of 10
Ease of Use:
* * * * * * * * . . 8 out of 10
Support:
* * * * . . . . . . 4 out of 10

Individual User Ratings

Overall:
* . . . . . . . . . 1 out of 10
Features:
* * * . . . . . . . 3 out of 10
Quality:
* * * * * * * . . . 7 out of 10
Value:
* * * . . . . . . . 3 out of 10
I Want It:
* * * . . . . . . . 3 out of 10
Sound:
* * * * * . . . . . 5 out of 10
Ease of Use:
* * * * * * . . . . 6 out of 10
Support:
* * * * . . . . . . 4 out of 10

Feature:
Independent controls for left and right would have been a great help.

Desirability:
It is difficult to determine whether this device merely increases the volume on phone input and chops the frequencies on all pass through signals or not. I no longer have the gear that does that. However, the sound does appear to be attenuated.

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Overall:
* * * * . . . . . . 4 out of 10
Features:
* * * * * * * * . . 8 out of 10
Quality:
* * * * . . . . . . 4 out of 10
Value:
* * * * . . . . . . 4 out of 10
I Want It:
* * . . . . . . . . 2 out of 10
Sound:
* * * * . . . . . . 4 out of 10
Ease of Use:
* * * * * * * * . . 8 out of 10
Support:
* * * * * . . . . . 5 out of 10

Feature:
Good features, no complaints.

Quality:
The thing is very nice to look at and its housing is very sturdy. Like I said above: I'm not sure if I got a bad one or not. If so, their quality control requires some work.

Value:
Considering the thing functions poorly and unsatisfactorally, I would say it was not a good value.

Desirability:
Listening to the playback with all the dropouts and wierd sounds it injects is just too annoying - I don't want it!

Sound:
I don't know if I got a bad unit or what, but there are several blatant "dropouts" throughout every song I tranferred. Very annoying considering I'm tranferrring to an mp3 player which is meant to be listened to with earphones. You can hear every anoying dropout and distortion that this thing whips onto the tune. VERY BAD. I got better sound from the Numark USB Turntable, which I gave to a friend when I purchased this awful thing.

Ease of Use:
Very simple to use especially with Audacity, no complaints.

Support:
I have no intention of contacting their support.

Overall:
This item is all show and no go - I thought that I had found my dream component and was disappointed. I guess I'll try out the new Terratec iVinyl and pay their hefty price - if I can find one.

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Overall:
* * * * . . . . . . 4 out of 10
Features:
* * * * * * * . . . 7 out of 10
Quality:
* * * * * * . . . . 6 out of 10
Value:
* * * * * * * . . . 7 out of 10
I Want It:
* * * . . . . . . . 3 out of 10
Sound:
* * * * * . . . . . 5 out of 10
Ease of Use:
* * * * * * . . . . 6 out of 10

Feature:
From an ease of use, and functional point of view, it's a great little device, and I'll probably keep it (it's better than the internal sound card on my notebook). But it certainly is NOT an "audiophile" component as advertized.

Sound:
The quality of the phono pre-am, whilst not as bad as some I've seen, leaves much to be desired. I cetainly would not use it for any sort of lp transfer, if I was looking for a 'professional' result. the "noise" on the audio channels is considerable, and in comparison to my current phono pre-amp, totally unacceptable. In addition the resultant transfer is very harsh, and not as warm as I would like.

Ease of Use:
Very Simple to set-up and use only takes minutes

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Overall:
* * * * * * * * * . 9 out of 10
Features:
* * * * * * * * . . 8 out of 10
Quality:
* * * * * * * * * * 10 out of 10
Value:
* * * * * * * * * . 9 out of 10
I Want It:
* * * * * * * * * . 9 out of 10
Sound:
* * * * * * * * . . 8 out of 10
Ease of Use:
* * * * * * * * * * 10 out of 10
Support:
* * * * . . . . . . 4 out of 10

Feature:
The unit has an input gain volume control, low cut filter, and USB power switch. Very simple and does the job. I like that ART didn't put EQ settings on this because it made the price less costly.

Quality:
The container is stylist and sturdy. The USB power switch has a very cool blue LED. The input gain knob turns easily and is easy to control.

Value:
Superb bang for the buck value! I use this unit to convert my vinyl into mp3 files. I was debating on a mixer or this, but the analog to digital conversion was the main seller for me. The sound is great and it's simple to use. This is a great unit!

Desirability:
Very nice design and the fact that you don't need an audio card to record vinyl is a very cool thing indeed!

Sound:
I'm basing this from comparing a CD to the same song on vinyl. I used BT's Flaming June for this comparision. The vinyl conversion was very good - the bass transferred over well as did the mid-tones, which is a HUGE plus in my book. The higher, more crisp sounds were a bit dulled compared to the CD, but that's to be expected since there is some sound loss in an analog-to-digital conversion. I gave this an 8 because the sound conversion was very good, but not CD-quality perfect. With some EQ tweaking using software, the sound could be rated as a 9 or 10.

Ease of Use:
Turntable to the unit to the computer. Can't be any simpler!

Support:
The company's website did not provide an easy way of navigating to information on this unit. The CD that came with it didn't have any clear indication that it wasn't a WinXP driver CD.

Overall:
Given a mixer of this unit, I'd choose this unit. There is less sound distortion and this thing is just great.

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Overall:
* * * . . . . . . . 3 out of 10
Features:
* * * * * * * * * * 10 out of 10
Quality:
* * * * * . . . . . 5 out of 10
Value:
* * * . . . . . . . 3 out of 10
I Want It:
* * * * * * * . . . 7 out of 10
Sound:
* * . . . . . . . . 2 out of 10
Ease of Use:
* * * * * * * * . . 8 out of 10
Support:
* * . . . . . . . . 2 out of 10

Feature:
This unit was a perfect match for what I wanted to used it for--namely dubbing records to CD. I can't think of any other features I would have wanted.

Quality:
The unit looks good. The controls seem to be solid and well made. On the other hand, the sporadic poor audio performance makes me question the quality control and/or the quality of the basic design.

Value:
This would be a good value if it only worked properly.

Desirability:
This would be a desireable product if it only worked properly.

Sound:
Sound was good when unit was working correctly. Unfortunately, this device seems to be unstable. The peak LED flashes for no apparent reason when no input signal is present. Unit would also record noise from time to time when no input signal was present. Also, occasionally only one of the headphone (monitor) channels would work.

Ease of Use:
The device installed easily on my Mac G5. Audacity took a while to figure out, but wasn't too bad. I didn't have much luck with the noise reduction feature, though.

Support:
I couldn't get any help from the manufacturer. The vendor was helpful and cheerfully refunded my money when I returned the product.

Overall:
This is a very disapointing piece of equipment. It has all the features I want. It appears to come from a reputable manufacturer. Unfortunately, the unit I tried was not even usable.

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