I came across a gadget that at first had me scratching my head. It’s a USB turntale that makes recording vinyl records to CD easier. It’s made by Ion Audio and can be bought at online stores such as zzounds.com for about $150.

At first I could not imagine owning any piece of vinyl that was not available on CD or Itunes. However this summer I attended a square dance (don’t ask). The “caller” was using vinyl 45’s. he even had modern hits like “Cotton Eyed Joe”. I asked why he isn’t using CD’s and where does he buy his vinyl. Apparently Square dance records is one of the genres that kind of got overlooked by CD’s. As far as getting new songs on vinyl there is a resource in Oklahoma that sells modern songs on 45.

According to reviews people really love this turntable. It simply connects to your PC via the USB port. The turntable comes with software to convert your old vinyl collection directly to CD or MP3. At this point it’s a snap to get it onto an Ipod.

Time to get all your Polka albums onto CD ! What’s next ? An USB 8 Track player ?