a/d analog to digital converter recommendatons

[audiobomber]

14 hours ago, SJK said:

I spent many moons researching the topic, and do R&D for a living.  What you want is a Korg MR-2000S or MR-2000SBLK.  It’s been discontinued, but you can find NOS units on eBay for under $1K. 

 

And then, you want to use VinylStudio for software rather than Audacity.

I used the Korg DS-DAC-10R and VinylStudio to record my LP's at 88.2/24 and am very satisfied with the results. It loses a bit of the finesse, but convenience and click & pop removal more than make up for it. Available for just over $400 on Amazon.com.

 

"Inside the DS-DAC-10R, you’ll find the same PCM4202 (made by TI) AD converter used in the MR-2000S 1-bit studio recorder. We have insisted on the same exacting quality as this recorder—which continues to be used in many professional studios." 

https://www.korg.com/caen/products/audio/ds_dac_10r/. 

 

[audiobomber]

9 hours ago, cjf said:

IMO, if your going to go thru the effort of ripping all your albums its probably best to save up for the best unit you can get your hands on. If it were me, I would hold out for an Ayre QA-9 or a Benchmark ADC1 and as Mitcho mentioned, I'm sure the Hilo will do a fine job as well which is probably the cheaper option of the 3 mentioned and has other capabilities you may be able to use as well.

What sound quality information do you have to rank any of the AD converters recommended in this thread?

[audiobomber]

9 hours ago, esldude said:

I agree on de-noise algorithms.  Some aren't bad, but all are causing more harm than good.   

I disagree. The default VinylStudio denoising algorithms do no harm that I can detect. Some of the second-hand records I own that were almost unlistenable due to surface noise and ticks, now either sound fully restored or at at least enjoyable.

 

I could find no technical reason to record at resolutions beyond 88/24. I chose to PCM over DSD, for several reasons:

- PCM is more universally playable.

- DSD recording is kludgy with Vinyl Studio

- Tagging, downloaded track separations, song titles, album covers is problematic.

- DSD recording loses processing capabilities:

• RIAA equalisation when recording (which I did not use)
• declicking and patching filters (hiss, hum, rumble, graphic equaliser, normalisation and equalisation curves / FFT filter)
• fading tracks in and out (huge loss with some albums)

[audiobomber]

6 hours ago, Le Concombre Masqué said:

for the record, as ADC for records,  there's also the discontinued TASCAM UH 7000 you once recommended that looks as the cheapest good solution

Hard to beat this on price or value: https://www.amazon.com/Korg-DSDAC10R-SOFTWARE-ANALOG-CONVERTER/dp/B017TZ0KYO/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=korg+ds-dac&qid=1568898519&sr=8-2