garbled, barely audible sound from speakers

[lotsofchats]

I am trying to convert my old cassettes to mp3. I have my tape deck up to 10. My 35mm aux cable is plugged into the "phones" jack in my tape player, and I inserted the other end into my "line in" jack on the back of my comp, not in the "mic" jack like the tutorial said. I hit play and the sound is barely audible. Not only that but it is not clear at all. Very garbled or warped (don't know what word to use to describe it). I go to "manage audio devices" and make sure the line in is at 100, doesn't make a difference. So basically it is not a problem with Audacity as a program because I tried recording myself from my webcam mic and it works perfectly. I just need help on what setting I am missing to be able to hear my cassette audio through my speakers clearly.

[kozikowski]

If you're on Win7 or Vista, you may need to turn conferencing services off.

http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/FAQ: ... hancements

I just need help on what setting I am missing to be able to hear my cassette audio through my speakers clearly.

You can't hear the music through your speakers, but do you get a good recording? Those are different although many people squash them together.You have trouble hearing, but do the red record meters bounce and do you get a good blue wave on the timeline like this...?

http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/Audacity1_record.jpg

my "line in" jack on the back of my comp, not in the "mic" jack like the tutorial said.

You found a tutorial that wanted you to plug into the Mic-In?

Koz

[lotsofchats]

Disregard my last post, I found a solution! I turned my speakers off, put the cassette player on 0 volume, then started recording. I slowly increased the volume on the cassette player until the blue wavelengths got bigger but didn't reach the edges while watching the red/green bars on top move to the right. I stopped increasing the volume right before they reached the max, then turned on my speakers. The sound was normal, no garbled distortion! I guess since my speakers are on the cheap side the sound levels were too much? I don't know. Anyway that's for your help, I appreciate it a lot.

[steve]

Glad you've got it working.
The problem would be not due to your speakers, but simply that the output from the cassette player has a much more powerful signal than the microphone input is designed to use.

I deleted your previous post as it's now not relevant.