Dubbing cable, or ?

[Buzz]

have a roughly 45 min recording on a plain vanilla digital voice recorder that I would like to transfer into the computer to reclaim the recording space, but while the recording plays clearly from its source, it doesn't seem to want to dub nicely to another (better) recorder w/ computer compatibility, or to the computer directly...

all sorts of stray sounds/noise garbles the dub w/ mono, or stereo cabling. the good recorders and computer have stereo (or mono) in, the source is mono out only. the trouble seems to be that whatever line out cable is used, picks up noise somehow... even just using a line cord to amplify it ithrough powered speakers njects more noise than is heard through the little itty-bitty speaker in the source unit. it's almost as if the only way I'm destined to get a user friendly dubbed recording is to put the two recorders into the closet, and play the source through the little built in speaker while recording to the target recorder a few inches away, and hope there's no ringing phones or toilets flushing in the background.

any audio types out there w/ some ideas? thanks,

Buzz
==

[loveshine]

I am not an audio pro but I have had to use my digital recorder to get phone messages off both my cell phone and office phone voice mails. as long as you have audio that is usable, this speaker to mic method should work fine.
As far as cable noise, it could be from interference &/or poor quality cables. There is more likely the possibility that when you hear the audio coming out of a better speaker, you are hearing sounds and noise that are actually there but the little speaker isn't reproducing them. This was very common when I'd go from a cheap cassette recorder to my Digital Performer rig and I'd hear the roller and hiss and wobble that I hadn't noticed when it was coming out of the little speaker.
Hope this helps.

[mikebw]

perhaps the audio output jack on your device is faulty

[Buzz]

both great suggestions that I hadn't (completely) considered. thanks. I started thinking bad cable, but w/ several producing poor results, I figured the odds of all being bad, especially since they worked OK in other applications, was pretty slim. my mind gravitated towards some sort of electrical or RF interference, not quite focusing on the output jack. via a headphone, the background noise is more audible than through the little built-in speaker, but still way less than what transfers via any of the dubbing cables. I guess that's why I like the computer compatible units better; just copy the sound files to the computer, and all is good...

any other ideas?

[mikebw]

You could always take it apart and solder on a direct connection, that would eliminate any noise from a potentially bad output jack, assuming that is even part of the problem.