Improving Ripped Vinyl Quality on a Budget

[Guidof]

Do you rip at 24/96 or 24/192, or some other, and why?

 

 

 

Why the choice of 24/96 and not 24/192?

 

And.... for anyone else who would like to chime in, I'd like to understand the basis of choosing one or the other, and why?

 

Thx.

 

The ART device maxes out at 16/48. VinylStudio can pad that out to higher resolutions, but that does not increase the SQ. Still, I generally digitize at 24/96, simply because I can, not because of an improvement in SQ, which is fine even at 16/48.

[Hewie]

I'm going to set this project aside until the UR22 arrives. I did some more tweaking, but the results are still well below desired. Here is a 45 sec clip from Aja if anyone's interested. This was captured as follows: Rega P3>Scott 299 phono>line out>PC onboard sound card. 16/48. No post processing.

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwL_BvPmTrRYcFA3N2lsSjhnM00

 

Dave

[esldude]

I'm going to set this project aside until the UR22 arrives. I did some more tweaking, but the results are still well below desired. Here is a 45 sec clip from Aja if anyone's interested. This was captured as follows: Rega P3>Scott 299 phono>line out>PC onboard sound card. 16/48. No post processing.

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwL_BvPmTrRYcFA3N2lsSjhnM00

 

Dave

 

Yuck! That does sound pretty poor.

 

Sounds way too thin and lacking in low end.

 

Your input to your sound card might well be a relatively low impedance like 10 kohms or something. The old Scott may have a relatively high output impedance and may have a coupling cap in there somewhere. That would explain what I am hearing largely. A very rolled off bottom end.

[CR250]

Since you have the NAD to use, why not try plugging it directly into your computer? You might be able to narrow the problem down to something definite just by doing that.

[esldude]

Try this. MP3 which is enough for these purposes. I did some EQ. I added RIAA EQ and then lifted gently 4 khz and upward.

 

Still not a great sound, but I think it is closer to the truth. The UR22 should do much better than this.

Steely Dan Clip wEQ.zip

[dtc]

The Tascam DR-05 is a good option for a starter A to D. It is available on Amazon for $85 and Parts Express for $99. It records up to 24/96. It will be a big improvement over your internal card. The UR22 outputs to the computer using usb. The Tascam records to a sd card and you then transfer that to the PC for processing with Vinyl Studio. This eliminates potential issues with the usb and means you do not have to dedicate a PC to the recording process. If the ur22 does not give you satisfactory results, you might look at the Tascam. One report I saw also recommended the Tascam DR-60DmkII. Seems like more features than you might need, but that report thought it had a very clean input and liked it better than the $1,000 Tascam DA-3000. Again, it records up to 24/96. $150 from multiple sources. Fortunately, you can return these for shipping costs from several vendors, including Amazon.

[Jabs1542]

I'm going to set this project aside until the UR22 arrives. I did some more tweaking, but the results are still well below desired. Here is a 45 sec clip from Aja if anyone's interested. This was captured as follows: Rega P3>Scott 299 phono>line out>PC onboard sound card. 16/48. No post processing.

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwL_BvPmTrRYcFA3N2lsSjhnM00

 

Dave

 

YES - wait until the ADC arrives, this sounds pretty bad, maybe your ADC will get you there. Esldude did a pretty good job cleaning it up but that may become a time consuming effort, not to mention the proper software to do so and then mastering said software.

 

Elsdude - You said you did some EQ, I get that; and you said you did a lift above 4K, I get that; but you also performed an additional RIAA EQ adjustment?

 

Note that the cartridge (including its needle) is the beginning of the chain and if your ADC doesn't get you where you want to be you should investigate the cartridge itself - I am wary of the cartridge having heard the file.

[davide256]

I'll give it a try, but the phono section in the totally rebuilt Scott is pretty darn good. It walks all over the Music Hall PA I had originally.

 

Time to do some poking around. Any recommended brands?

 

Thanks

 

Highly skeptical that an integrated like the Scott is anything other than mediocre for phono pre amp. It took buying a quality separate phono pre amp (Musical Surroundings Phonomona II+) for my LP investment to sound better than my native digital source chain compared . Once you have a verified good quality phono pre then you can compare/judge whether your A/D converter is doing justice to LP source.

[dtc]

 

Note that the cartridge (including its needle) is the beginning of the chain and if your ADC doesn't get you where you want to be you should investigate the cartridge itself - I am wary of the cartridge having heard the file.

 

Seems like he happy with his current vinyl setup, and is just trying to reproduce that sound with the A to D process.

[esldude]

YES - wait until the ADC arrives, this sounds pretty bad, maybe your ADC will get you there. Esldude did a pretty good job cleaning it up but that may become a time consuming effort, not to mention the proper software to do so and then mastering said software.

 

Elsdude - You said you did some EQ, I get that; and you said you did a lift above 4K, I get that; but you also performed an additional RIAA EQ adjustment?

 

Note that the cartridge (including its needle) is the beginning of the chain and if your ADC doesn't get you where you want to be you should investigate the cartridge itself - I am wary of the cartridge having heard the file.

 

 

I downloaded the file and opened it in Audacity. I tried a few things, and was not happy with the result. It didn't sound too far from a file that did not have the RIAA EQ applied. I even wondered if the line out on the Scott was prior to the EQ a phono stage is supposed to do. Audacity has the RIAA curve built in as an EQ choice. So I did the RIAA EQ on the file. Was closer in the low end, but too dull sounding. I then did a 6db per octave rise in response starting at 4 khz (oops check that I just looked and started at 2 khz). Which partly reverses what the RIAA curve does.

 

I didn't spend more than about 10-15 minutes on this. I could improve it more if I spent more time on it. In general though it is a big frequency response issue and probably a poor sound card issue. Until you get a better recording device I wouldn't make a judgement on the LP rig in use.

[Maldur]

If, I say IF the end format is CD with 44,1kHz Fs, then why all recordings are done in 48kHz or 96kHz?? Why not in 44,1kHz or 88,2kHz or 176,4kHz?

 

I listened this Hewie recording, why this is recorded in mono? Vinyl is always somewhat out of phase (phase is not accurate as in digital form), so making mono recording from vinyl always ends with some degradation in bass regions, because phase distortion cancels some important sound. This effect is useful for cancelling of low frequency rumble noise, but it destroys useful musical signals. I opened this file in editor and I can't measure any rumble noise component. So, they are cancelled effectively with Mono tab, I think.

[gmgraves]

I'm setting up to rip my vinyl collection, but am not happy with the results, and could use some advice. There are no obvious "defects" in the results, but burned CDs are rather thin sounding with a very compressed sound stage. My goal is to burn my vinyl collection (~250 lps) to CD for both portability and simplicity sake, but maintaing a high level SQ is very important. If the results aren't at least similar SQ to a standard CD, I'm not going to spend the time doing this.

 

My system is a follows: Rega P3/Benz MC20E2H >Scott 299D line out>Gateway Core i3 with onboard sound. CDP is a Rotel RCC-1055. I have been ripping to line-in at 16/96 to FLAC. I've used both Audacity and VinylStudio. My test record and CD is Steely Dan Aja.

 

My thoughts, and this is where I could use some feedback, I think the thin sound is due to the poor quality on board sound chip, so I'm looking for a better SC or an external ADC. In the long run, my goal is to put all of my music on a dedicated PC music server, and use that for a majority of play back.

 

1) Is it likely that a better SC or an external ADC will significantly improve the SQ?

 

I'm debating between a new sound card such an ASUS Xonar DX and an external USB ADC such as Steinberg UR22 ($150) or a Behringer UMC204HD ($80). My budget

 

2) Any advice on the internal SC vs USB devices? Any feedback on these particular choices given a budget up to $150?

 

Thanks ahead,

Dave

 

 

OK, I have no DIRECT experience with the Behringer UMC204HD, but I do own an FCA202 audio interface which is a two-channel Firewire interface ADC computer interface (24/96) that I have had for 6 or 7 years and I used to use it in conjunction with Audacity to make live recordings, and with a really good pair of condenser microphones, the results were all one could ask for. So, based on that, I'd say that the UMC20XHD series is probably excellent. Everything I've ever bought from Behringer, including several mixers and a number of microphones have all punched way above their weight, performance-wise. I wouldn't hesitate to buy one of these. I'll guarantee you that it will sound good and you can save yourself some money. BTW, and outboard ADC is, in my long experience, better than a sound card for really high quality transfers. PC boxes are really noisy environments and even the most modest of external interfaces will be, in my long experience, much quieter.

 

I do have a question, though, if your main requirement is ripping LPs, why would you feel that you need the UMC204HD rather than the UMC202HD?

 

The only thing that I hear wrong with the clip you posted is the bass. It doesn't have much.I suspect that this is probably caused by your H. H. Scott's phono stage. If this is a vintage piece, then a strong possibility exists that the capacitors in the signal path of the Scott are probably paper, and most likely have dried-up somewhat. As capacitors dry-up, their value drops and as that occurs, the lowest frequency that they will couple rises. Thus a system can sound fine from several hundred Hertz up, but have little response below that. The amount of low frequency attenuation and the frequency at which the attenuation begins to occur, will depend upon how perished the capacitors in the circuit actually are, and where they are located in the circuit. If this is what your rips sound like, I don't think that the problem is your sound card (although it still could be). My money is on your phono preamp stage, and if so, a new ADC computer interface won't help.

 

Have you tried lifting the bass in Audacity to see if that helps? I'm going to try it with your demo clip now. and I'll get back to you...

[gmgraves]

Have you tried lifting the bass in Audacity to see if that helps? I'm going to try it with your demo clip now. and I'll get back to you...

 

 

I opened your Steely Dan clip in Audacity and using the bass-boost feature under the "Effects" menus, I tried boosting the bass both at 200 Hz and at 100 Hz. I boosted the bass below 100 Hz by as much as 24 dB, and still found the recording rather thin sounding, especially in the mid-bass region. Raising the "hinge" frequency to 200 Hz and applying 24 dB of boost gave what sounded much better to me with a lot more low frequency punch. You might try it yourself, play with both the starting frequency and the amount of boost. You will probably find even a better setting if you use the "Equalization" feature (also under the "Effects" menu)in Audacity. This gives you a graph from 20 to 20KHz and you can change the slope, contour and amount of boost and cut by placing your mouse pointer on the line at some frequency point and pulling the point up or down and then hitting the "preview" button on the equalizer panel to listen to the result without changing it permanently. Once you find a "curve" to your liking, then hit "OK" to save the changes. Hope this helps, at least until you find a more efficacious hardware solution.

[Hewie]

Wow, I sure appreciate all the suggestions and file tweaking! I think esldude is right on with impedence mismatches of the Scott. I think the output comes right from the 12AX7 plates as an unbuffered signal.

 

Unfortunately, I returned the phono pre, so cant do any more experimenting with that.

 

As far as the Scott goes, I recapped the whole unit along with a whole mess more work. I realize I'm comparing mid-fi components, but it sounds much better than the naim nait and NAD 3120 that came before it. And what's funny, especially if you listen to the clip, is I've always felt the Scott rolls off the highs in the phono circuit compared to more modern gear. Oh well.

 

I'll give the UR22 a shot when it gets here, and reevaluate the next step.

 

Dave

[iago]

I think esldude is right on with impedence mismatches of the Scott. I think the output comes right from the 12AX7 plates as an unbuffered signal.

 

+1

 

I'm a bit confused by the workings of the multiple selectors in the circuit diagram; but it looks as if there is a 47 nF capacitor in line with the tape output. With the resistor in parallel it constitutes a high pass filter with 10 Hz cutoff frequency.

 

If you connect for example the ALC887, which is a typical audio codec used in on-board sound solutions, it's input impedance of 40 kOhm will move the filter frequency up to 530 Hz.

[Hewie]

Progress! The UR22 arrived, and I'm having much better luck. Here's my first shot: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwL_BvPmTrRYYXpYeXBfVGlaX00/view?usp=sharing

 

I'm going to have to spend some time over at Hoffman's site to really understand a proper procedure and workflow.

 

After poking around, it's clear that the line-out of the Scott can't handle the impedance of the soundcard. Others have put a buffer amp in to resolve the problem. I'm still not clear on why I had poor results with the NAD phono pre, but at least I'm making some progress now.

 

Thanks again for everyone's help,

Dave

[esldude]

Yes, that is much nicer. A little experience and you should have it down pat.