Recommended gear for ripping vinyl?

[StephenJK]

With apologies to bluesman, I completely disagree with his very much unproven theory that LPs wear out!  And I especially disagree with the notion that because they supposedly do then there’s not much point using anything but the most basic hardware to record the albums.  If you want to have poor results that’s how you’re going to get it.

Obviously records can wear out but they don't if properly taken care of, cleaned if needed and played on a turntable that is properly setup.  This isn’t theory, this is fact with a lot of corroborating evidence. 

Whether an LP sounds good is dependent of course on a number of factors - not the least on whether it was a good recording in the first place. If we can take that as a given then the goal with transcribing any LP is to have it sound exactly the same in the digital domain.  

 

And to do that you need a couple of things that will have a huge effect on the final quality of your recording – the turntable/cartridge used to play the records and the ADC that gives you that digital format.

 

I’ve recorded over 2,000 LPs from my collection, almost all are done now.  The turntable and cartridge have been upgraded a few times but I think at the worst it was a VPI Classic I with a Dynavector 20X2H, a Rega P9 with a Dynavector XX2 MKII or now with a Clearaudio Innovation Compact and a Dynavector Te Kaitora Rua cartridge.

 

Everything has been recorded using a Korg MR-2000S digital unit.  It’s still one of the best ever made and you can still find them used for around $1K.  I upgraded mine from the original hard drive of 80 GB to a 320 GB so that I can have a longer recording time.  The Korg is in the stereo rack connected to a tape loop output on the preamp.  When playing records all I have to do is hit record.  That’s done at the highest possible resolution – 1 bit at 5.66 MHz, double the SACD standard. 

 

I use the maximum bit depth only because of the file size limitation of other formats such as WAV which is limited to 2 GB.  When recording at high resolution each LP comes in at a bit over 1 GB.  Because I eventually convert the 1 bit files to FLAC, there is a limitation with that format as well at a maximum of 4 GB for each file.  What that really means is I can record up to 3 LPs with one file before starting another recording.  With something like opera sets at 5 or more LPs they become two or more files. 

With a number of LPs recorded I transfer them by USB to a laptop.  There I run the Korg Audio Gate software to convert from 1/5.66 MHz to 24/96 FLAC files.  I don’t use dithering because I’m not reducing the bit depth.  I also don’t use any other filters or processing, it’s unchanged from the original recording.

 

Once converted to 24/96 I bring the music file into VinylStudio, one of the best bargains for LP mastering.  I know a lot of people use Audacity because it’s free, but that’s what it’s worth.  With VinylStudio at around $50 you get a program that will do an Internet lookup for the track titles and cover art, and that allows you to insert the track breaks where you want them.  For long runouts on album sides it’s a simple matter to edit out that unwanted playing time.  The program also has filters to remove turntable rumble (should that be an issue), tape hiss if the recording was from a tape and a crackle filter for your average LP.  I do use the crackle filter, generally at the default settings but try to keep any processing to a minimum. 

 

The mastering is where the work and experience is needed – the actual recording doesn’t take any effort. The final result is a very high quality digital recording where I can’t tell the difference from the original LP.  I did testing at 24/192 but couldn’t hear any difference when compared to 24/96 other than a larger file size.

 

I’ve done a lot of testing between the original LP track, the 1 bit recorded track and playback from the final FLAC format.  With a high resolution recording you really shouldn’t lose anything – it should sound the same as the LP.

 

Why bother?  For me it was with the realization years ago that if I could record my LPs then I could have them in a much more portable and flexible format where I could play them anywhere.  The investment in the recording side more than made up for not having to buy digital files of the LPs I already had – if they were even available. 

 

In summary, for anyone contemplating transcribing LPs the first thing I would say is it’s a lot of work.  If you’re not a patient person this might not be for you.  And, of course the first question should always be “How many LPs do you want to record?”  If you only have a few that are already available then just buy the CD.  The second question should be “What kind of quality do I want for the recording?” and that leading directly to “How much do I want to spend?”  Once you consider those three points then you can look at suitable options. 

 

 

 

[StephenJK]

I remember looking at iZotope way back when I was looking at options.  I had gone through ripping close to 1,000 CDs in MP3 format at 320 kpbs, the highest format available at the time.  A lot of us did that because storage was expensive and the large discs we see today just weren't available.  I ended up ripping them all over again a few years later at 16/14.4.  

 

Long story short, with recording the LP's I only wanted to do it once.  I think there was something about the file format that iZotope used that wasn't compatible with what I had decided on - FLAC files with level 5 compression and embedded metadata.  

 

I think you just have to find something that works well for you in the long term.