Originally posted by french frank
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Sorry, Richard, I'd need to go to the library and get out an appropriate book to understand that. The stereo or hifi (this one) is what used to be called a 'music centre'. It has a tuner aka a radio, a cassette deck, an MD player and a CD player, with recording facility to transfer from one of the various media to another. And yes, the stereo has phono, P-MD (what the dickens is that?) and USB-B ports (see image). johnb, late of these boards, also set me up with pre-amp and cables to connect a turntable. All of those use the stereo's speakers. So what I need is a set-up that uses the computer's 'system audio' rather than the stereo speakers; then I can use Audio Hijack to record the minidiscs. I think.
It sounds as though you have already got that far. The copy protection system might stop things from happening if you use the USB cable, though it sounds from what you have suggested that something is getting through. See next para - and install Audacity! If there is audio input via the digital link and your computer is picking that up, then you should be able to record in Audacity - but would have to switch to that input source.
The P-MD socket is I think an input socket, which you can use to connect an external Portable Mini Disc (P-MD) player to this to make analogue recordings on the internal MD. The Phones output is just an analogue output - which will almost certainly be controlled by the volume control on your unit. If you connect that socket to a suitable audio input device [not sure if your laptops have audio inputs] then you can set the levels, play the MDs on the unit, and record - for example using Audacity - which is a free download and fairly easy to use. OK - doing analogue copies will involve a slight loss in audio quality, but that can be minimised. The biggest issue is just the time taken to do this in real time.
If you don't have any audio inputs on any of your computers, then there are some fairly cheap ones which should do the job - look on Amazon. Check if the M-Audio ones will do - they have the merits of cheapness and portability. You may not be intending to do much of this - though if you were, some other models - Behringer, Focusrite etc. might be better, but would cost more, and you might end up with a rack of connection cables!
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