Hissing sound while capturing song from deck

[radhak]

I am trying to convert my cassette collection into mp3 for the iPod. I am using Audacity software for capturing, and playing the cassette on a small boombox connected by a mono audio-cable.

Today, the songs from one of the cassettes have a discernible hissing sound that was absent (or at least not as loud) with the cassettes I did last week. What could be the reason for this - the cassette's bad (possible with a 10-year old piece), or the player's head needs cleaning, or - what else?

At first I captured at top-volume, but the static was so bad that I cut the volume to half - but it's still not satisfactory.

Of course, a stereo capture would be great, but my none of my computers have more than one in-line socket, so I never bothered to search for any player with a stereo output (if they exist). That also tells you I am far from a music afficionado, just a lay listener.

[BobSch]

Try one of the cassettes you alreadt transferred. If the hiss is still there, it could be dirty heads, if not, then the other tape has probably deteriorated.

[linear]

Or minor differences in head alignment (between the playback deck and the deck the tape was recorded on).

You can remove noise in Audacity, to some degree (it may surprise you how well it works actually). It's a two step process using the "Noise Removal" choice under the effects menu.
http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.p...=Noise_Removal

See also
http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.p..._from_Cassette

[LCHIEN]

dirty heads, misalignment (bothe lateral and azimuth), don't cause hiss, juts a loss of high frequencies.

may be the source tape, may be the tape has dolby noise reduction and the player none. Cassettes had a huge amount of hiss anyway if you are now used to CDs.

You can probably pick up a "HiFi" cassette deck more suitable for transferring for a few bucks now. eBay or pawn shop.