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I am trying to get a digital copy of some cassettes using an HP laptop. I have tried pressing play on the cassette player, to record on Audacity, but Audacity does not show any sound. Initially I used an audio cable with 2 black bands on the plug. audio cable with 2 black bands (pictured)

I read an HP Forum answer that referenced this laptop jack which said "You'll need a dual band or double banded microphone/headset. The Envy 15 has a Headphone-out/Microphone in combo jack (compatible with 3.5mm 4-conductor jack with stereo audio and mono mic)". So I thought that I needed a dual-band cable with 3 black bands on the plug, because of the laptop jack being a combo headset jack, so I bought one of those cables online - see below (pictured). cable with 3 black bands

The laptop has an audio jack with a headset symbol. It's an HP Envy HP Envy laptop audio jack

But no Sound reaches Audacity using either cable

In each case the cassette player is generating audio through the cable, because if I plug the output into "Audio in" on an old CD player then the sound comes through the CD player's speakers.

Cassette Player headphone jack is standard - anyway as above it works Casette player headphone jack

I've tried all the microphone options - MIME, direct sound and Windows WASAPI But now I'm out of options. Help!

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  • At the moment I have not got any sound - abysmal or otherwise. These are historic family cassettes with speech and I want to turn them into digital recordings; I was reckoning that an audio cable connection would result in better quality than simply playing the cassette through the cassette player speakers and using the laptop's microphone.
    – Mike Cashman
    Commented Dec 31, 2022 at 17:24
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    I turned this into an answer… you won't get any sound with either of those cables, you'd have to have one made up specially to even arrive at 'abysmal'.
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Dec 31, 2022 at 17:26
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    Does this answer your question? How to connect a headphones output to a laptop microphone input
    – sawdust
    Commented Dec 31, 2022 at 22:14
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    @sawdust - it might "answer the question", but it feels a bit like someone wanting to buy a coffee mug & being handed a potter's wheel, a lump of clay & some instructions on how hot the kiln should be. The answer doesn't really fit the level of the question.
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Jan 1, 2023 at 11:19

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The best I can say is "You don't want to start from here."

Your cassette player is low-impedance speaker-level out, TRS, stereo. Your computer is high-impedance mic-level input, TRRS, mono. Even if you got a cable made up to physically function, your level/impedance matching will make this sound absolutely abysmal.
Your source & destination are simply not a match.

If these are sentimentally important family history etc, then buy a cassette deck with a USB output which will marry nicely to your computer, saving a whole lot of "I don't know how this all works" audio matching.
Otherwise find a local service who can do it for you.

If it's 'just music' you can get anywhere… then just get it anywhere, iTunes, etc.

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  • This is not just music - this is family history stuff which I can't get anywhere else. I've looked for USB output cassette decks and they're very expensive. My question was about how to achieve the recording with the cassette player and the laptop that I have got. Would the right cable be better than just playing through the cassette player speakers and recording with PC microphone - that seems a pretty basic method but I thought I could do better.
    – Mike Cashman
    Commented Dec 31, 2022 at 17:30
  • There is no "right cable". It is not just a case of making one physically match the other. I'm seeing cassette to USB devices on Amazon/eBay for less than the price of a hand-made cable, £16 UKP
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Dec 31, 2022 at 17:38

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