The Full Monty - recording Vinyl in hi rez and playing back

[peritone]

Hi......I am on a digital journey so to speak, and not a tecnophile in pc's . I have lots of vinyl L.P's and 45's that never came out on cd's just because of their rarity. So the time has come to digitize my collection for prosperity and comfort of playing them like a jukebox but at a nice audiophile sound level. this is my equipment i have decided on for the moment :-

 

Oracle V / graham tonearm/ lyra titan i or dynavector-xvis

 

This then feeds a benchmark A/D convertor to a mac pro with lynx card and then to a Weiss Dac 2 out to my analogue rig/ stax headphones.

 

Now what I want to know is what is the best software to rip my vinyl to 24/176 or 24/ 192 and what is the best software for removing any hiss or clicks pops on my older records. ??

 

From "The Benchmark a/dc" i will be running a cable from It's aes/ebu to hd26 connector on the Lynx card, then a hd26 to aes/ebu connector to the Weiss Dac2 although this has a firewire connector to the mac if needed. If anyone has any thought's on this please chip in, I am a really newbie at this. Seemingly the Weiss Dac2 has out puts for digital as well so is it possible to run the Benchmark through the DAC2 using it as a interface then back to computer via the firewire then when recorded send the files back to the DAC and then on to my analogue rig without using the LYNX card at all ??

 

I am total confused as where the Word clock comes in to all this, I see I have an output on the A/DC convertor and one of the pins of the hd26 on the lynx card can be attached, so is a clock need or what ??

Finally the AES/EBU cables, as can be seen I need two cables

one from the A/D to the lynx card and one from the lynx card to the DAC

 

Can this be solved by buying a 6 metre aes/ebu for i.e van dan hul 110 ohms cable with a male and female xlr connector on either end cutting it in two then putting HD26 connectors on either end ??

 

Just a few bits to mull over but, any advice will be gratefully received

 

All the best Barry

 

[audiozorro]

My advice is to test the waters before diving in. Digitizing vinyl can be a lot of work. Most people recommend using Audacity which is free and easy to use. A program like Pure Vinyl is more capable and much more difficult to use.

 

Try digitizing about two dozen LPs at various resolutions to see how you like it. I believe Audacity is generally used for 24/96 while Pure Vinyl offers 24/192.

 

If you want higher fidelity, I suggest one of the computer recorders from Tascam or Korg. To quote their advertisement:

 

"If you want the advantage of archiving your final mixes in the studio with technology previously only available to major record labels, the Korg MR-1000 desktop/portable recorder, offers you the pristine fidelity and flexibility of 1-bit technology (used for the SACD format). It's also an excellent choice for location recording, broadcast journalism, live music performances - even for rehearsals and song-writing sessions. By recording in 1-bit/5.6MHz format you are assured that your most important, once-in-a-lifetime moments are captured in stunning detail, and ready for whatever the future brings you. And back in the studio it also provides superb final mix and archiving benefits."

 

You can then convert the higher resolution audio files to 24/192 AIFF or WAV files with their software.

 

Good luck and I may join you at some point in the future.

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Barry - I love your enthusiasm and willingness to dig into this project! Very cool. Based on your self proclaimed novice PC skills I think you may want to consider an easier solution. I'm not the best person to offer any advice on this particular topic unfortunately. I think your proposed solution would offer fabulous sound quality, but again I have my doubts about the ease of use. Hopefully someone here can offer solid advice and help you get this proposed system going.

 

Good luck!

 

[dimsal]

I tried Audacity but preferred Soundtrack Pro on my Macbook Pro to digitize all my LPs. Then I used ClickRepair to remove pops/clicks if any. You can also do this manually in Soundtrack Pro.

 

Don't forget that you cannot run analog outs directly from your cartridge, you'll need to run analog cables from phono preamp to Benchmark ADC and then either to Lynx card or Weiss DAC.

 

Don't be afraid to experiment, I'm sure you'll be fine.

 

[rhodyavphile2]

My beginning in the digitizing of vinyl was with the Alesis Masterlink and Audactiy for 24/96 file format. I also used Audacity to convert the AIFF format that the Alesis unit creates to FLAC and then converted the FLAC to m4a in 16/44.1.

 

The FLAC allowed me the greatest flexibility while the AIFF and M4a got tagged for iTunes->Transporter and Ipod use respectively.

 

This solution does not require much computer savvy at all and does create very good sounding rips...

 

I am considering moving it up to the next level after reading the article in Stereophile about Pure Vinyl at 24/192. Although I do not have the hardware yet for A/D/A and Firewire connection.

 

In your case, I think the Lynx card might be redundant to the Benchmark ADC and Weiss DAC2 combo connecting to the Mac Pro over firewire...

 

By the by, nice analog rig, out of curiosity what phono pre do you use?

 

Good luck

 

[peritone]

Hey Guys thanks for the input it is much appreciated, helps when you feel isolated to know that there are good guys to come to your aid !!

 

AUDIZORRO.....I have read about the 1 bit stuff on the Korg site that sounds interesting, but have to watch my pennies now, but it sounds real tempting, DSD and all that !!, very interesting. Playing out a recording as a one bit 5.2 MHZ file must be interesting ??

 

DIS........I have an ARC phonostage going into ref 3, wished there was not so many boxes !! but maybe when some files are in place and digitizing is done, I will be able to slim things down a bit.

 

I am under no illusion of how difficult digitizing the vinyl will be, It will be done in stages.

 

Chris I must commend you on this great site you have put together, great ,clean looking site !!

Please sort out this cable review for AES/EBU to lynx I need some now and I dont want to waste my money on octopuss leads. Did you think the idea of splitting the made up cable in two was a good idea ?? LOL

 

All the best guys, thanks for everything!!

 

 

 

[Spirit]

Barry:

I have a copy of an article that was written a few years ago by an audiophile magazine here in Canada. The article details how the editor of the magazine embarked on the same journey of digitizing his vinyl collection at 24/96 resolution using an Edirol interface. It makes for some interesting reading. If you would like me to email you a scanned copy please send me an email:

spirit84atrogers.com

 

[peritone]

Looks like my e-mails are down at the minute , Thanks for the offer , that would be great, I appreciate the time you are spending in doing this, I hope i will be of help in the future...............Kind regards Barry

 

My E-mail is [email protected]

 

[peritone]

I think you could be correct about the redundant LYNX card, wish Daniel would step in and assure me of this, then can sell card and put it towards cables etc. and then no need for cable from lynx to A/D etc.

 

I like the look of the pure vinyl I saw it a few weeks ago, was hoping to find out more about it.

 

Seems as if there is good sites for Windows Archiving of Vinyl with nice bits of software relatively cheap, if anyone is interested in them i could track them down tomorrow and put them up

 

Thanks again for your comments

 

All the best Barry

 

[Blu]

Check out the website for the "Pure Vinyl" software for Apple Mac computers at http://www.channld.com/pure-vinyl.html

 

Mikey Fremer talks favorable about it in the March 2009 issue of Stereophile. He has been digitizing vinyl for years and says this software beats any other method he has tried including hardware solutions.

 

They are offering it at a discount until the end of February.

 

Blu

 

[audiozorro]

One other thing to note. You can download the demo version of Pure Vinyl to see if you like using it and are pleased with the results.

 

[RHA]

Peritone,

I've also been doing this for a while now. Be prepared to put in the time. Between recording, editing and inputting data you'll easily spend over 1 hour per LP. Initially I chose Pure Vinyl but found it difficult to work with (as MF mentions there is a steep learning curve). I found Pure Vinyl slow and cumbersome for the editing I do, namely identifying and naming tracks, and doing the fade in/out and silent areas between tracks, and trimming some of the lead in and out to conserve time and HD space. I tried Audacity (free) and haven't looked back. If clicks are minimal I'll use the click removal function within Audacity. If there are to many clicks and pops to do manually I use Click Repair (c. $40). For me both of these programs are easy to work with and do a great job. I have not compared sound quality of Pure Vinyl with Audacity although I doubt there would be much difference. For picking nits I'm sure the RIAA correction applied in the digital domain of Pure Vinyl would probably be superior due to the differences between various phono stages. I'd strongly urge you to take audiozorro's suggestion and try the Pure Vinyl demo first and see if it works for you. No sense spending the money if you wind up, like me, with a product that just doesn't work for you. For me the juice just wasn't worth the squeeze.

 

I chose the Apogee Rosetta 200 connected via firewire to my Intel iMac for A/D recording and D/A playback because it's a 2 in 1 solution for me (no separate DAC needed). For recording I use 24/96 sampling in AIFF. Must confess I haven't tried the 24/192 capability of the Rosetta. I'm sure it sounds great but with so many LPs to record I wanted to conserve HD space and the 24/96 AIFF files (through iTunes) sounds very close to/indistinguishable from the original. I use the drobo with 4/ TB drives for storage and backup (I've already used over half the 4 TBs of space) and the iTouch as a remote. I keep the AudioMIDI set at 24/96 and upsample the few 16/44.1 files I have during playback. Sounds good to me... but then I don't listen as critically as I used to. I gave up trying to have the latest/greatest. To date: iTunes shows 1336 albums (98% of which are LPs), 709 Artists, 13724 songs. About another 1000 LPs to go. It's all about the music!

 

Good luck with your project... I'm sure it'll be worth it when you can sit back and instantly access those old treasures you haven't heard for a while. Cheers, Rod

 

 

 

 

[herculepirate]

I have a TacT M2150XDM which is a digital Room Correction Amplifier.

I have the need to get input my Turntable into this amp.

The Amp accepts only Digital inputs and hence I need an ADC.

Can anyone suggest me a good ADC which will give me 24bit 96khz at least with an SPDIF Coaxial / AES EBU / Optical out and also an option to connect a computer via USB for recording as well...

Any suggestions welcome.

 

Regards

 

HP

 

 

[same same but different]

I have an experience that whatever ADC/DAC/computer/software combination you use, whatever rate you set, the most important thing in the system is phono preamp. If you use cheap discreet toy, branded or "very well branded" - music will be dead. Same, if you use software RIAA correction, instead.

 

Generally speaking, 80-90 percent of quality is there. You may use simple ADC/DAC and great tubes-based pre-amp, and it would be seriously better than if you spend few thousands on digital equipment but skip tubes pre-amp. You may easily check the difference at any system comparing discreet vs. tubes pre-amp, it is not hard to find and try.

 

More, it is absolutely important to have appropriate well-tuned turntable and good cart in it, tuned well with all the angles/ weights/ offsets.

 

Software part: the only good benefit of Pure Vinyl is useful peak level data and its needle sensitive (auto-start/stop) function. All the rest is absolutely terrible and unstable. It is not pro, as simple as that. Sad, there's no other easy solutions. Audacity or Soundtrack will work with less comfort but more stable.

 

Post: please please please think twice before you destroy music by noise reduction or clicks/cracks remove. If you have to do it for any reason, ever best solution is iZotope, this one beats dramatically anything else. Their RX is the best also for resampling and dithering.

 

Good luck.

 

[herculepirate]

Noted:

Good Tube Phono

ADC does not matter

Well Tuned TT and Good Cart....

 

Any recommendations for the ADC which has SPDIF and also USB out to record...???

 

Thanks

 

HP

 

[winst]

Hi Same as,

Does iZotope have RIAA correction built in?

Thnx

Winst

 

[rhodyavphile2]

So your experience is that the ADC is not a big player in the overall quality of the rip?

 

What ADCs have you tried?

 

Thanks,

Steve L.

 

[same same but different]

iZotope doesn't have RIAA - it should be done by phono pre-amp. If you do it with software, this is the end of story. iZotope needed for resampling, dithering and cutting. Maybe for some minor manual(!) clicks repair if they are really strong.

 

I used Motu Traveler and e-mu 0404 USB (tweaked very much, please don't even try it in on-stock version). At the very beginning I tried M-Audio Microtrack, this one is absolutely useless.

 

If you have 'rubber' budget, look at RME or Apogee (not duet nor mini).

 

If you have extra-budget, look at Audio Note Phono preamp, this could be the best thing you can buy. If not, look any simple DIY tube pre-amp with original tubes issued between 50-80, that's really easy to find. Key point: old tubes, like Telefunken/Phillips/Mullard/Matshusita, not modern soviet/chinese replicas.

 

[same same but different]

Of course, ADC/DAC matters. I just wanted to set priorities. All I'm saying is that TT and pre-amp are most important here.

 

If you are at the point of choosing turntable, look at Lenco, Elac, or Perpetuum at least, with original 'vintage' carts, if you do care of music. Contemporary tables that human-can-buy often sounds boring and plastic-fantastic, not about music but rather about "sounds". And for some marketing reason costs few times more.

 

As for ADC/DAC: I would say Motu Traveler, even first series, used, sound good enough to keep music alive. Step back, like E-Mu might be good too but requires lot of tweaking and DIY, if you can and want to.

 

SPDIF or USB depend on computer you use and wires. You may simply compare and choose which works best.

 

[RHA]

Hi HP, I've been doing this for some time now. As stated before everything makes a difference... I recommend to use the best you can afford. Everyone will have a different opinion of what is "best". I believe the Apogee Rosetta 200 (ADC/DAC) that I was using will meet your requirements but it uses a firewire connection to computer, not USB, and you would need a RIAA phono stage. I have finished my recording and would like to find a nice home for the Rosetta. There are many reviews online such as: http://www.recordproduction.com/Apogee-Rosetta-200.htmI If you are interested you can contact me at: [email protected]. While I have limited experience with all the hardware/software combos out there I'll be happy to share my experience if you have further questions. It can be great fun reliving those goldie oldies. Good luck with your project. Rod