The TEAC gf 350 is a turntable/cassette/cd unit that converts directly to cd. no cables, computers, software, etc. I am not an audiophile, but the key is to clean the original vinyl (33, 45 or 78 rpm) really well. I've read that the bass levels are a bit lower on the vinyl conversion than the cassette, cassettes seem to burn to cd with little or no loss of sound quality. and it's available for around $300. delivered. I'm getting one soon, I have hundreds of old folk and international recordings that I don't ever expect to see released on cd commercially, but record them once, listen to them over and over again without more needle damage. BTW the needles for the TEAC are not expensive and are supposed to last for 1000 hours of recording. Anybody out there have experience with this?