I have an indash CD Player. I have a ten disc mp3 changer in the trunk. These are both installed.
I have a tape deck (indash) that I also want to install. Can this be done and how hard is it?
Has anyone run multiple decks before?

 

*** only knows why, but if you must do it, get a head unit that has an auxiliary input. Run the RCA outputs from the other head unit into those inputs.

 

I managed to collect upwards of 1000 tapes over the years and without a tape deck, they are just obsolete.

 

CD burners and sound cards with an aux input are DIRT cheap, and those won't wear out from continued usage like your tapes will. Get them on cd!

 

I've got a burner. My question is, what is the transfer quality like?
When you go from Deck A to Deck B when recording tapes, you lose quality...so is there any significant sound distortion going from a tape to .wav/.mp3 etc...?

 

Why not just download the Mp3's of the songs on the tapes?

 

I hope this is the last post ever of someone asking how to install a tape deck.

Copying from tape to the computer generally loses very minimal quality as long as the tape player you use is of good quality. But really, like MasterEvilAce suggested, just download the mp3s and be done with those tapes. And buy some new music.

 

When you record from Tape A to tape B, there's a lot of stuff going on.

First of all you're dealing with the inherent limitations of Tape A. Then you play it on Tape Deck A, which has frequency response limitations, dynamic range limitations, and wow & flutter limitations. Now you're taking that signal, and using Tape Deck B which has frequency response, dynamic range limitations and wow & flutter limitations, and putting it onto Tape B which has its own share of limitations.

All in all, there's a lot of crap that's interfering with the signal between it's home on Tape A, and it's new home on Tape B.

When you record from a tape to a CD, you're only dealing with the limitations of Tape A and Tape Deck A. Basically, your cd is going to sound exactly the same as whatever is coming out of Tape Deck A. As long as you've got a good quality home tape deck to play the tapes, your cds will sound good.

In your car, those cds will probably sound better than your tapes, because the quality of your tape deck in the car is probably the absolute worst part of the entire signal chain. With very rare exception, there are not any good quality automotive tape decks available anymore.