Remember those old vinyl record albums and singles collecting dust in your basement? They still have the same old songs that you loved years ago, but they don't play on your computer or iPod -- unless you've connected one of the new breed of record players, like the LPDOCK by Ion Audio.

At first glance, the LPDOCK looks like a standard turntable that you grooved to in the 1970s. But it's very different. For one thing, it connects to your PC's USB port so you can digitize your music into MP3 format. For another, it allows you to connect directly to your iPod through a built-in dock.

The LPDOCK comes partially assembled, so you'll need to take a few minutes to put it together. It's not difficult to assemble -- even the tricky procedure of balancing the tone-arm for optimal audio performance. Balancing only takes a few minutes, but it requires you to understand the sparse directions. (It's like assembling those department store bicycles on Christmas Eve.) You'll also want to install the software. It comes with two excellent software packages -- Audacity, which is an open-source music recording and editing software, and EZ Vinyl Converter 2, which makes recording your favorite albums a breeze. As I stated in a recent columns, EZ Vinyl Converter is among my favorite software applications because it is so easy to use.

Whether you use Audacity or EZ Vinyl Converter 2, you should be prepared to be entertained while you record -- because the recording is done in real time; that is, it takes the same amount of time to record a song as it does to play it. So you might as well listen as you record. It's one of the few jobs that really is more fun than it is work. But it's time consuming.

When I first installed the LPDOCK, I went on a recording rampage -- trying to record as many albums as possible. After a week of using every spare moment to record my disks, I still only had two dozen albums on disk, which left me with several hundred additional albums that I wanted to convert. If you have a large album collection, you could be talking years instead of weeks or months.

Let's say you have 500 albums. If you are one of those extremely organized people who can allocate time every day to convert at least one album, that would still take you 71 weeks. And I'd bet that after a few weeks your persistence would fade -- no matter how much you try to persevere. Figure it would take you two years or longer. That's still much better than waiting for your old stereo turntable to poop out or than letting your albums languish in boxes, unused.

Of course, you'll find shortcuts like I did -- like doing the recording while you walk away to do other things. But then, if you want to have all the display information on your iPod -- like track and album name, artist, and album artwork -- you'll need to edit the tracks after they are on disk.

If you're an iPod user, you'll find it handy to be able to dock your iPod right on the turntable to record your songs directly into the iPod. There are even buttons on the turntable to control the iPod.

The only negatives I found about the LPDOCK is that it's missing hardware niceties that were standard on most ancient turntables. It does not have a clear plastic dust cover, nor a place to store its spindle adapter for 45-rpm records -- even though Ion Audio does include these features on other models.