Lies about vinyl vs digital

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1 hour ago, Blackmorec said:

 

The other aspect of digital vs. Analog that is important is that digital music files and music streams can be ‘reconditioned’, with retiming, jitter and noise removal etc. Once a digital stream has been cleaned up, it must be protected from further noise contamination.

What are your recommended means of achieving that ?

Add the possibility to eQ and rePhase music streams at marginal costs

[Le Concombre Masqué]

I recently was very dissatisfied with a SACD in comparison to the original vinyl. Turned out the SACD was made from dubious source, the original tapes being lost : and that bothered me tremendously, far more than the advantage digital has in my system thanks to eQ etc. As much as I take the vinyl revival as marketing BS, I'll stick to and keep most of my vinyl collection for, right or wrong, they bear the original sound. Take Soultrane, I regret selling my LP ; maybe (obviously) the various audiophile editions are closer to the actual performance but they miss the tubey mastering ; not to mention the sped up side 1 of Kind of Blue... Though twisted, the sound that made history is in the grooves

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17 hours ago, SJK said:

I don't consider either format to be superior and enjoy them both.  I do think a lot of CDs were issued with little to no care for the mastering or final sound quality but that's also true for LPs as well.

 

I continue to digitize LPs that I own.  Having completed about 1,600 rock, jazz and blues LPs I've moved onto the classical and opera.  They all get added to the same 2 TB drive as the CDs.  For any new music that might interest me I too often find that the only way the music is available in any level of quality (redbook or better) is with a physical CD.  I can rip that and then put the disc away.

 

Now, with the Devialet Expert Pro 440 monoblocks all incoming signals are digitized, processed to whatever configuration is used and then run through a DAC stage for final playback.  

 

Regardless of what some may thing of this type of digital signal processing, I hear things from the original LP or CD source I never heard before, and that's a good thing.  

 

And, of course, it ends the argument of which is better, the LP or the CD because they all get the same treatment.  My only technical issue now is whether the output configured from the amp to the digital recorder should be analog or digital.  I need to do some testing.

which ADC do you use? I have been considering a second hand TASCAM UH 7000 to live feed a 4 iteration of HQP* but I think I'll go Linux and this one does not have the drivers

 

*My digital front end is much better thanks to convolution via HQP and I want my LPs to benefit of it as well 

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47 minutes ago, SJK said:

It's a bit complicated.  For years I used the analog output from a tape monitor loop on a preamp as the input to a Korg MR-2000S digital recorder.  It's still one of the best ADC's around, recording up to 1 bit/5.66 MHz.  If you're looking to record LPs I would highly recommend it.  It's no longer being made but many NOS units are around for about $1K.

 

With the change to the Devialet Expert Pro 440 monoblocks, I did check to make sure there would be an analog output that could be used the same way.  But - all inputs to the Devialet are digitized through their own ADC.  That way, any and all processing of line level or phono inputs can be done in the digital domain including with the phono the sensitivity for the input and the RIAA curve you would like to use.

 

That means the analog output from the Devialet to the Korg recorder will now have gone through both an ADC and DAC stage.  Not that there's anything wrong with that - I'm not one of those believers that "the bits get tired and some of them start to fall by the side of the road" type of guy.

 

But I do have the option of taking a digital output from the Devialet to a digital input on the Korg.  It will still function as a recorder, but I'm wondering what's the point?  I'm really just transferring the file to the Korg internal hard drive.

 

I'm tending towards using the analog output from the Devialet to the analog input of the Korg, despite the fact the path is now Devialet ADC, Devialet DAC and Korg ADC.  

 

The third option, of course, is to use a phono preamp and send the output of that directly to the recorder.  I just sold a Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista Vinyl thinking I wouldn't need it any more, but that's all part of the upgrade process.

 

From a scientific perspective, the conundrum is that I can no longer experiment or test properly, as I've lost the analog playback baseline.  I can't compare what the LP sound will be direct to the Korg as opposed to going through the Devialet as I need hardware to do that.  

 

I suppose the biggest issue is I would really prefer the analog recording from the LP to be straight to the Korg as before, and picking up a MC phono preamp shouldn't be that big a deal.

 

But, I work in R&D and it's all about finding the right solution for the problem.  

thank you !

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3 hours ago, SJK said:

Yes, I’m replying to my own post.  I’m convinced I’m not the only one to do so.

 

The more technically minded will have realized two things - If I use a phono preamp to the recorder I can’t hear what I’m recording and if I send a digital recording to the Korg I may as well just record to the music server laptop.

 

Just a few minutes ago I received an email from Devialet in response to my question about configurations for digital recording.

 

It turns out the USB connection from the laptop to the Devialet is bi-directional.  I. An run VinylStudio and record the digital output from the Devialet after a single ADC stage with RIAA compensation.

 

It looks like the Korg MR-2000S is no longer needed.

Recording was not an option I had in mind, I was more thinking of live feed of HQPlayer. Don't know what sounds best, live feed or recording? I have a VPI cleaner but I guess that to add a ultrasonic cleaner when recording is a must. Plus thus it requires thinking and evaluation of what is worth the process... See it sells for $ 1149 on Amazon, wonder what is the second hand value.