Vinyl -> Digital

[The Computer Audiophile]

"It is a pity you decided not to participate in the hi-res listening test I was/am running. Would have been interesting to see the result from somebody with such discerning ears as yours."

 

Julf - Unless you've changed the test significantly it's really a flawed test that will only lead to misinformation of which you so greatly despise.

 

[Julf]

"Unless you've changed the test significantly it's really a flawed test that will only lead to misinformation"

 

Chris, can you perhaps expand on that statement? The major shortcomings I can see is the possibility of cheating and the fact that the material doesn't contain significant amounts of ultrasonic energy. I am not sure that that qualifies as "really flawed" - but it is something to keep in mind when looking at the results.

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Julf - I wrote my concerns in this response -> http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/Does-Hi-res-sound-better-How-good-are-your-earsyour-sound-system#comment-132221

 

 

 

[Julf]

I addressed those concerns in this response.

 

[AudioDoctor]

both with and without the phono amp. Either way, it is a great device. When recording using the phono amp, the files are nearly indistinguishable from the actual record. When bypassing the phono amp and letting Pure Vinyl do the RIAA it is different, but still very very good.

 

edit: I want to add that beyond the spectacularly good A>D stage of the Fireface, the extremely quiet mic inputs with up to 65db of gain are crucial for recording without the phono stage with even very low output MC cartridges.

 

[m_j_s]

Appreciate your comment about the mic inputs. I have downloaded the manual for the ff400 and clearly it has many fanastic features. I would probably use the line inputs 3/4 for my recording purposes assuming I need hardware level control, although it might be fun plugging the tt straight into inputs 1/2 to see what results.

 

[Julf]

Let me once again address your concerns/remarks.

 

"1. Sample rate conversion software. Are we really testing high resolution music or sample rate conversion software?"

 

If the sample rate conversion software makes a major contribution, it should be quite clear in the results - if people clearly separate out the original, unprocessed track from the others, there is a possibility of the rate conversion software affecting the result. But if not, then it is unlikely that the software is responsible.

 

"2. There should be no sample rate conversion involved. The same performance must be recorded at several sample rates simultaneously to even begin an assessment of sonic differences of those sample rates."

 

I agree - *if* the purpose of the test is to compare recording formats. But in reality, almost all material is recorded in at least 96/24 these days, and then downsampled. So my test is actually more realistic if we want to compare the formats as *listening* and *distribution* formats.

 

"3. DACs all perform differently at different sample rates."

 

That is why all the tracks have been normalized to the same sample rate, to take the DAC out of the equation. No, we are not comparing different formats using DACs optimized for that format, instead we are comparing the actual content under identical conditions (with regards to the DAC).

 

"4. What post production work was done to the files and at what sample rates?"

 

Will be described, track by track, when I publish the results.

 

So, as you can see, what I want to compare and what you might want to compare are slightly different things. I am not sure that makes my test "flawed".

 

[m_j_s]

I'm procrastinating between the fireface 400 and the Duet 2.

 

Its come up in a few posts, but can anyone comment about whether the Duet 2 really adds any significant colouration to the sound? I realise these things are never night and day in terms of the difference, but any real experiences would be appreciated.

 

[chrisg3]

m_j_s

 

I never owned any of them but at some stage were seriously considering aquiring FF 400 based on user posts and positive opinions from various forums. It seems to me FF400 is also more acomplished device than Duet2 (and so is its price). FF400 is also about twice the price of Duet2. If you could live with firewire and have no budget constraint I would go for FF400. I can't comment on Duet sound coloration. I believe you should base your decission primarily on quality of a) analog input stage and b) A-D coversion section. my 2c.

 

[m_j_s]

Well, that's sort of exactly what I am trying to do - basically on the grounds of audio quality, with a view formed from forums such as this and other info on the web. Its a bit hard to trial one in place.

 

Yes, the RME Fireface 400 generally gets glowing reports, generally very neutral sound, its somewhat old but still up there, no real problems, has a heap of other capabilities other than just 2-in/2-out necessary for converting vinyl, some of which might be of some interest in the future, firewire is probably just starting to get less common as a connection type (eg RME themselves now have several interfaces connected via USB). Its about AUD1000 for me and I'm ok with that if that's the way I go.

 

The Duet 2 would do everything I need for the time being, it gets very good reports on quality, although there are also many reports of it being slightly coloured compared with the Fireface, there is some amount of reporting of driver instability or other problems, eg driver update fix in last 24hrs apparently removes 192kHz sampling, USB interface but Mac only. Seems that Apogee don't have that good a reputation when it comes to stable drivers, whereas RME is considered rock solid. The Duet 2 is about AUD600 for me.

 

Both interfaces are rated highly, certainly more highly than my current Presonus Firebox. I would like to think that the next purchase to be the last in terms of interfaces to handle 2ch audio computer, and that I don't have to turn around in six months and get something else ("yeah, right" he says recalling all audio purchases made over the last 40yrs!!)

 

There's probably no black and white right answer, they are both pretty good solutions quality wise, with other capabilities being different but a little irrelevant. Reported problems with the Duet 2 concern me a little. Leaning to the RME. Any other comments out there related to quality?

 

[AudioDoctor]

I have a very well regarded Wavelength Cosecant v3 DAC, I could not be happier with it. the RME FF400 could EASILY be my only DAC as well. Do not forget that as well as being a top flight A>D it is also a top flight D>A with truly balanced outputs and a headphone amp.

 

[Teresa]

"It is a pity you decided not to participate in the hi-res listening test I was/am running."

 

Sorry I don't like solo voices as a matter of fact I don't like much music that lacks percussion. If I don't like the music I will not listen to it, instead I turn it off and put on something I like.

 

Also I hate comparing one thing to another, that is why I seldom review components as this type of listening causes me too much stress.

 

I buy music based on if I think I will like it and how I think it will sound, sometimes based on history of the recording company and/or engineer. I keep music based on how much I enjoy it and the feeling I have when it is over. 16 bit leaves me cold and it is hard to listen to it for an entire album (listener fatigue?) however well made 24 bit from audiophile companies leaves me with a warm satisfied feeling. Based on that, what would you listen to?

 

"Would have been interesting to see the result from somebody with such discerning ears as yours."

 

I don't think my ears are especially special, I just never took a shinning to CD or 16 bit digital. Back when that was all that was offered I just listened to my LPs and 7½ IPS Reel to Reel tapes. Back in 1983 I believed that CD was anti-music and I still believe that today, and no megabuck CD player has yet to change my mind.

 

I really admire people who refuse to tolerate digital in any form. To my ears analog sounds the best but I am lazy and accept the near-analog sound of high resolution digital. I don't like the care, adjustments and maintenance of LPs and turntables. Nor do I like cleaning and demagnetizing the heads on my tape deck. I had high hopes for CD as it was so convenient, too bad it sounded like pure crap!

 

If high resolution digital actually sounded "digital" like 16 bit digital does I would have rejected it as well. But thankfully for reasons unknown to me high resolution sounds more like analog than digital. I really don't like the sound of digital.

 

Still not all high resolution digital sounds analog-like, for example I have rejected and sold 90% of the SACDs I have purchased as they sounded too digital, my feeling is that at some point in production the music was passed into a 16 bit digital device.

 

My favorite high resolution digital is from Reference Recordings, Telarc and Chesky. And I don't like major label (commercial) recordings at all except for some of the best audiophile remasters of them. Such as Classic Records 180/200 Gram LPs of RCA Living Stereo and Speakers Corner 200 Gram LPs of Mercury Living Presence and Decca. And some of the better done rock and jazz remasters from MFSL, Analogue Productions, Audio Fidelity and a handful of others.

 

Still even after accepting digital my favorite recordings on my computer are from audiophile LPs and my favorite SACDs are from DSD or analog masters.

 

 

[m_j_s]

AD

 

While I have not had the pleasure of hearing any of the Wavelength DACs, I am sure that the Cosecant V3 is a fine piece of kit. From this and other posts of yours, it is easy to gather you are a fan of the FF400, so thankyou for your support in that direction.

 

I do have a FF400 on order and I am reasonably committed, its just that the wait enables other possibilities to be pondered!

 

[AudioDoctor]

It has always worked flawlessly and done its job about as well as anyone would want.

 

Waiting is the tough part of getting a new piece of gear.

 

[larryb]

I too am hung up on the choice between the Duet2 and the Fireface 400. The latter costs twice as much. Since the difference could go to my Krell Monobloc fund, this is a serious issue. The Babyface comes in at the same price +/- as the Duet2, so that would be good to know about too.

 

[m_j_s]

Well, I certainly haven't heard either the Fireface or the Babyface directly against the Duet2. My take is that the Babyface is flying under the radar somewhat, not quite as sexy a package as the Duet2, greater flexibility with ins/outs, probably very similar performance to the Fireface, TotalMix FX software, so arguably right up there against the Duet2.

 

I will have some sort of experience to report on in the next couple of days, probably with the FF400. Tonight I have been messing around with the Presonus Firebox and Wavelab Elements a bit more. Maybe getting used to the gear more, but the results aren't too bad. Have tried Audacity but don't really like it as much as Wavelab. May look at Pure Vinyl/Music once I sort out the eventual interface.

 

BTW, not sure you get too many Krell Monoblocs for the price difference b/w FF400 and Duet2/BF.

 

[JohnMH]

In my earlier post towards the beginning of this thread I put out some misinformation. Apologies. Here are the specs on the EMU 1616M audio interface as published in Sound on Sound not long after the EMU 1616M was introduced -

 

Emu 1616M Brief Specifications

Sample rates: 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96k, 176.4 and 192 kHz from internal clock.

Mic/guitar/line Inputs: two, balanced XLR with switchable global +48 Volt phantom power and 0 to +65 dB gain range, balanced/unbalanced TRS quarter-inch jack line instrument with -15 to +50 dB gain and 1M(omega) input impedance, plus switchable Soft Limit option.

Turntable input: twin phono, 47k(omega)/220pF input impedance, nominal 15mV RMS sensitivity.

Analogue inputs: four, balanced/unbalanced line-level TRS jack at -10dBV or +4dBu sensitivity.

Analogue outputs: six, balanced/unbalanced TRS quarter-inch jack at -10dBV or+4dBu level, duplicated on three stereo 3.5mm jacks, plus card headphone output and Microdock headphone output with level control.

Digital I/O: S/PDIF in and out up to 24-bit/192kHz on phono coaxial, ADAT optical up to 24-bit/192kHz (switchable to S/PDIF format if required), two MIDI Ins and Outs.

DSP Core effects: 1-Band Parametric, 1-Band Shelf, 3-Band EQ, 4-Band EQ, Auto-Wah, Chorus, Compressor, Distortion, Flanger,Frequency Shifter, Leveling Amp, Lite Reverb, Mono Delay (100, 250, 500, 750, 1500 and 3000), Phase Shifter, Rotary Speaker Simulator, Stereo Delay (100, 250, 500, 750 and 1500), Stereo Reverb, Vocal Morpher.

Converters: AKM AK5394 ADC and CS4398 Cirrus Logic DAC (1616M), PCM1840 ADC and CS4392 DAC (1616).

Dynamic range: 120dBA (1616M, analogue inputs and outputs), 110dBA (1616).

RMS jitter: 596 picoseconds at 44.1kHz using internal crystal, 795ps using optical input.

Frequency response: 20Hz to 20kHz +0/-0.03dB.

THD + noise: -105dB (0.0006%) 1kHz signal at -1dBFS.

 

Question for those knowledgeable - are the jitter specs now considered to be unacceptably high at 596 ps? Are there now interfaces in the $500 range that do a lot better in terms of jitter?

It seems the high dollar DACs many discuss on this forum are typically roughly an order of magnitude lower in jitter. From what I've gleaned here and elsewhere the jitter is critical.

 

Sorry again for the misinformation in my earlier post. The EMU 1616M does not use Burr Brown DAC or ADC, but AKM ADC and Cirrus Logic DAC.

 

JohnMH

 

 

[JohnMH]

I didn't mean to stop the thread with my last post. I can see now that there remains significant controversy on the topic of jitter audibility. Apparently there is no definitive answer to this question. Also, the issue probably belongs in a different thread.

 

[m_j_s]

Firstly, JMH, that E-MU 1616m gets very good wraps on ixbt in terms of test results and performance. Looks like a good pci solution.

 

Well I now have an RME Fireface 400 in the recording loop instead of the Presonus Firebox. I was I impressed with the ease with which it was up and running with the Mac Mini. Obviously it can do all sorts of this as well as 2ch ADC, and I'm impressed with the build quality and controls. I guess all that has been said many times before about RME interfaces.

 

In terms of quality it has been very hard so far to pick differences between original and digital copy, and there are no really "big" differences between the Fireface and the Firebox. One thing that I have noticed is that there are minor differences in the waveforms between the recordings of the same material on both the Fireface and the Firebox. Probably very difficult to imply differing audible results though. I don't have enough skill yet to overlay the waveforms or subtract them etc. I was a bit surprised that there is not too much difference between both interfaces, as I have been managing to get some pretty good results out of the Firebox recently. The Fireface appears to have a bit more detail, but it's minor. Have been recording some old Practical Hi-Fi Supercut recordings and I'm going to delve into a lot of ECM jazz stuff as well, that has been unlistened to for some time. At two lp's a night max it's going to take a long, but hopefully enjoyable time!! Some more critical listening is in order.

 

[m_j_s]

I have now done a fair bit more ripping and comparison of original vinyl vs digitised version using the RME Fireface 400. Have to say the results are pretty good, perhaps some very minor differences in my system, but only very minor. Very professional piece of kit, of which I'm using only about a 2% of its capability.

 

Still doesn't take away the tedium of it all, although I did download a demo version of Pure Vinyl today and that looks interesting, in lieu of Wavelab. Certainly not your usual linear recording interface! It does seem to have a lot of tools in the kit bag as well.

 

Of course, I've now had to get an external drive for the mini for extra storage and I have gone with a La Cie with the relatively new thunderbolt interface. This was supposed to be a simple and relatively inexpensive exercise!

 

[DavidL]

I'm very happy with my Fireface 400 (see original thread for my route to purchase).

After initial tests on digitising LPs with Pure Vinyl facilities against those available in Peak Pro I've decided to stick with the latter.

At the moment I'm in the middle of transferring my library of a couple of hundred DAT tapes (44.1, 32 and 48 kHz recordings) to computer files, using the digital interface in the FF400, with a 2TB LaCie disc as back up.

When I've done this I can return to transcribing the 300+ LPs!

 

David

 

[m_j_s]

One unintended,but very positive outcome out of using the FF400 (or perhaps any interface for that matter) is that I now have headphone output. I haven't had that previously and have now bought Sennheiser HD650's which are proving to be very beneficial for listening later at night.

 

I also just purchased a LaCie 2Tb HDD with Thunderbolt connection for music storage purposes. It's very fast but it also has a fan which seems to run flat out all the time and is very noisy, too noisy in fact for serious music applications. Not sure what its fate is going to be, and it wasnt cheap. Be wary of these drives.

[Darius_Steinway B]

Perhaps u can help me.

 

I have the RME fireplace 400. haven't used it in a long time -- MBPros still had FireWire!

Currently w Mountain Line OS 10.8 and MBPro w USB only.

 

Can u guide steps to digitize some selected vinyl for me? (first of all, how to connect FF400?). Don't want to digitize entire vinyl collection.

 

UsingRega P9/IOS stage/252 Naim preamp and PureMusic...

Would buy Pure Vinyl is necessary.

 

many thanks

 

d

 

 

 

it is not a fast or easy process, and to get it right will take some trial and error as well as a good A>D stage. I use an RME Fireface 400 which sold for about $1500 US. I then use Pure Vinyl Software CHANNEL D - Pure Vinyl that sells for $279 US. That is on top of the vinyl playback equipment, turntable, phono amp, cartridge, etc... I also highly recommend a Record Cleaning Machine to get the vinyl LP as clean as possible before digitizing it to minimize the clicks and pops you will be tempted to remove with the "click and pop" remover.

 

Done right it can sound amazing.

[m_j_s]

You seem to imply the MBPro has no FireWire port. As far as I am aware the new models still have fw800, so you should be able to connect the ff400 via a suitable firewire cable. Is this the case or not?

 

Assuming it is, you then need to connect it and select the ff400 as output and input under system preferences/sound. Audio devices under audio midi setup may need to be adjusted as well in terms of format and levels in each channel. I assume you have Totalmix or FirefaceMixer which is also used to set the audio path.

 

I assume you have a line level signal from your Pre-amp and you do not need to apply any RIAA equalisation which the software may be able to do. I suggest you connect to the ff400 Line inputs 3 and 4. If you want to listen to the ff400, connect the line outs 1 and 2 to suitable line level inputs in the preamp, but be careful of unintentional feedback loops. You will need cables with 1/4" TS plugs at the ff400 end and whatever plugs you need at the Naim end. I am not totally familiar with the PM software and am not sure if it records. If it does, I assume you have some options for selection the right inputs and outputs on the ff400 that have signal on them. You should then be able to set up a recording which you just need to sample a bit to check levels (give your self at least a few db headroom). Perhaps select 44.1k and 16bit to start with. Then cue up and way you go.

[esldude]

Those M-Audio 24/96 cards have some good qualities. But a low jitter clock is not one of them. They are quite jittery and also the clock drifts quite a bit over time. Fortunately you can lock the clock to an external source even while using it to record. Any decent DAC or CD player used to feed an SPDIF signal to the M-Audio even if the DAC or CD player is idling(actually probably is better if it is idling) will result in a better clock signal. You can do this and still record analog inputs with the M-A 24/96. It is a reasonably low distortion, low noise device it just has a lousy clock or at least the two I have had hands on did. Also true the clock drift and such is probably way below the speed fluctuations in a turntable. But try lock to an external device and you'll get better results.

 

Just seemed like a good place to put this. Noticed in an earlier thread someone used an M-audio card.