Vinyl conversion to digital - because "ripping" just doesn't sound right.

[wemist01]

In my meanderings around Ebay I have found the NAD PP3i, NAD PP4, Rega Fono Mini A2D, Pro-Ject Phono Box USB, and the Thorens MM 088 ADC Phono Preamp units. All are devices that can take phono input and output a digital signal to my computer's USB inputs. Has anyone used one (or more) of these? Are they superior to simply feeding the output from a "normal" preamp with a phono section into a PCIe audio card in my computer and letting Audacity go to town on the captured signal?

NAD PP4 has reliability issues. Had one and after a few years the sound got all crumbly and could not be fixed. Many reviews mentioned the same problem.

 

[Snarfie]

This beast of gear Allen & Heath Xone 4D.
https://www.allen-heath.com/ahproducts/xone4d/

 

[Chrispy]

I got an ART USB Phono Plus a few years back (no complaints with the unit nor the included Soundsaver software to clean it up)......I was thinking I'm retired and have time to transfer some of the vinyl I don't have digital versions of.....did a couple then decided I'd just play the record when I wanted to I just don't have the patience to rip that much vinyl, at least not without rearranging a good spot to sit and do it from, my current equipment location just isn't conducive to it. I do the same with blurays and sacds, just play the disc, not worth the effort to rip.

 

[Darth Bubba]

NAD PP4 has reliability issues. Had one and after a few years the sound got all crumbly and could not be fixed. Many reviews mentioned the same problem.

Yes, I remember seeing that in the Buyer's Remorse Reviews sections.

 

[Darth Bubba]

This beast of gear Allen & Heath Xone 4D.
https://www.allen-heath.com/ahproducts/xone4d/

View attachment 112638

And where do I park the rest of the Space Shuttle?

 

[Snarfie]

And where do I park the rest of the Space Shuttle?

After 10 years+ i did probably use only 60% of it functionality still figuring out it VCF/LFO settings, FX routings, programming midi messages etc Despite it is jammed up with electronics it is dead silence when recording vinyl digitaly.

 

[Darth Bubba]

After 10 years+ i did probably use only 60% of it functionality still figuring out it VCF/LFO settings, FX routings, programming midi messages etc Despite it is jammed up with electronics it is dead silence when recording vinyl digitaly.

I've looked at several of the professional sound-engineer-ish field units that people had suggested and was put off by the prospect of having to learn a whole new "language," as it were, to even make basic use of them. I *thought* I knew a good bit about audio, but I couldn't even tell you what some of the connectors were used for. That, and the labeling of the I/O ports and various functions were completely foreign to me. Yeah, I could look it all up in a "Newbie's Guide to Sound Recording" book, but I just wanna transfer some of my vinyl to digital without heading back to school for a sound engineering degree. And given that I already own some pretty good home audio equipment, I didn't want to pour a ton of money into buying *more* equipment.

 

[rdenney]

I have used a Creative X-Fi HD external sound interface, and it worked well enough for needledrops. It did not measure particularly well here (SINAD at 91 dB as I recall), but it's good enough for this purpose. Using it, I cannot tell the difference in FLAC files and original playback.

I have since moved that device to my upstairs office computer (feeding an old Carver amp and cheap and ancient Alesis monitor speakers), and bought a used Benchmark ADC-1 USB for my main system. It is superb, and dramatic overkill for recording LP's. But its very high signal/noise ratio means I can record with 6-10 dB of headroom and digitally amplify the file after recording to whatever I specify as the peak level, without also amplifying noise into the audible range. And the Benchmark has immensely detailed gain controls. Back in the days of recording needledrops onto tape, we had to hit that record-level mark right on the button, which required listening to the whole album to check every peak to make sure we were using every bit of the limited dynamic range of the tape recorder. It's much easier now, even though digital clipping sounds far worse than peak compression on tape.

(I also own a Presonus Studio 24C, which is intended for use with microphone inputs like a lot of commercial-sound products. The Benchmark can amplify microphones with high outputs, but lacks the sensitivity for low-level condenser mics. The Presonus has two channels of 50 dB microphone preamps. But the main reason I got it is that it mixes microphone inputs and backing tracks (coming from the computers) in the analog stage and sends them to my headphones, with control over the relative mix of microphones and backing audio, and a volume control on the head amp. But it would work just fine for needledrops.)

The rest of the chain is: Thorens TD-166 II in fully and carefully restored condition, Music Hall Cruise Control adjustable-frequency power supply for the Thorens, TP-11 tone arm (their cheapest, but carefully adjusted), Audio-Technica AT-440MLa cartridge, Adcom GFP-565 preamp phono inputs, Benchmark ADC-1 through the Tape Out bus of the preamp, USB to the computer, Win10 computer running Vinyl Studio. Vinyl Study has a declicker built in, and also does a very good job of pulling track information from the web to make splitting the raw files into tracks easy. It will save the files in any usable format--I save them as FLAC files, recorded at 24/96, and then downsample them to 320 mb/s MP3's to put on my iphone and the thumb drive I use in the car. I play the FLAC files directly on my system using Music Bee (Vinyl Studio will also play them, but it's less convenient).

Some have questioned the reason for doing this. Here's mine: I already own the albums. And possession of those disks (LPs and CDs) is a permanent, unassailable right to play that music on my system, as long as I have the equipment to do so. Same with my CD's. I do not have to worry about digital rights management, the integrity of some company's external database, my internet bandwidth (which sucks), a company's decision to compress the music just because they can, or the state of my credit card to sustain that right.

Rick "with parallel capabilities that can remain configured for just one purpose" Denney

 

[SKBubba]

I can highly recommend Vinyl Studio:

https://www.alpinesoft.co.uk/

 

[Darth Bubba]

I have used a Creative X-Fi HD external sound interface, and it worked well enough for needledrops. It did not measure particularly well here (SINAD at 91 dB as I recall), but it's good enough for this purpose. Using it, I cannot tell the difference in FLAC files and original playback.

I just bought (like, yesterday) an EVGA Nu Audio PCIe soundcard for this task. SINAD is in the orange range but the ADC performance was quite good, and better than the task requires. I already had an Asus Xonar Dx 2U, which looks like it just won't be up to the task.

You have an impressive equipment list; I have an Adcom GFP555-II preamp (among too many others). You know why it's labeled "GFP," right?

 

[Darth Bubba]

I can highly recommend Vinyl Studio:

https://www.alpinesoft.co.uk/

Downloaded V 11.7.1 a moment ago. Thanks for the link.

 

[rdenney]

I just bought (like, yesterday) an EVGA Nu Audio PCIe soundcard for this task. SINAD is in the orange range but the ADC performance was quite good, and better than the task requires. I already had an Asus Xonar Dx 2U, which looks like it just won't be up to the task.

You have an impressive equipment list; I have an Adcom GFP555-II preamp (among too many others). You know why it's labeled "GFP," right?

Oh, yes, I know what the initials mean.

Rick “the 565 is a great Walt Jung/Victor Campos design” Denney

 

[LtMandella]

Anyone here saving their vinyl disks to digital? What equipment do you use? Anyone just playing their pre-amp output into their motherboard line-inputs?

Yep, I just started my long delayed task of archiving my 500+ LPs to digital. I am experimenting with phono preamp output vs. direct cartridge output into recorder (then applying RIAA EQ to digital file). I am recording to DSF using a KORG MR-1 although it can also record up to 24x192 PCM. And I have an IFI Zen phono preamp arriving tomorrow to experiment with. Right now I am leaning towards using one of the phono preamps. After extensive recording/listening tests, the phono preamp recordings just sound less harsh. Not as "in your face" presence as with the direct from cartridge output. We'll see how the IFI Zen sounds. I am using an MMF 7 turntable with a Grado gold cartrdige. I also have an ultrasonic record cleaner arriving in a few days. After I digitize all my records, I will sell or donate them. I want to divest of the physical LPs.

So far I can say that either method of digitizine - with or sans phono preamp - sounds better than I expected, and the equal in quality to any streaming service playback, including hi-res. So that is very encouraging and convinces me this project is worth the effort.

 

[gene_stl]

I just read through this thread and note that nobody has mentioned Sweet Vinyl/Sugar Cube audio.

For me their price is a deal breaker because I don't want to sink thousands of dollars into digitizing my LPs. So I will use one of the above methods.
But they seem to be going after quality and convenience. They claim their click and pop remover are "wavelet based" whatever that means. But I did linger in their suite at Axpona and liked what I heard and would get my wallet out if the prices were more reasonable.

https://sweetvinyl.com/

 

[Darth Bubba]

Yep, I just started my long delayed task of archiving my 500+ LPs to digital. I am experimenting with phono preamp output vs. direct cartridge output into recorder (then applying RIAA EQ to digital file). I am recording to DSF using a KORG MR-1 although it can also record up to 24x192 PCM. And I have an IFI Zen phono preamp arriving tomorrow to experiment with. Right now I am leaning towards using one of the phono preamps. After extensive recording/listening tests, the phono preamp recordings just sound less harsh. Not as "in your face" presence as with the direct from cartridge output. We'll see how the IFI Zen sounds. I am using an MMF 7 turntable with a Grado gold cartrdige. I also have an ultrasonic record cleaner arriving in a few days. After I digitize all my records, I will sell or donate them. I want to divest of the physical LPs.

So far I can say that either method of digitizine - with or sans phono preamp - sounds better than I expected, and the equal in quality to any streaming service playback, including hi-res. So that is very encouraging and convinces me this project is worth the effort.

First; which audio processing software allows digital RIAA correction? I don't have any installed yet so I just don't know and the adverts aren't always complete about features. Second; I've seen outputs of LP captures vs factory CD captures of the same song (same album, reissued in CD format), and observed that the CD version often showed excessive compression compared to the relative dynamics on the LP. Maybe this is the Phil Specter "Wall of Sound" engineering approach? Anyway, good luck with your endeavor - I have about a hundred LPs to archive, some are collector albums so I'm in no hurry to be rid of them.

 

[Darth Bubba]

I just read through this thread and note that nobody has mentioned Sweet Vinyl/Sugar Cube audio.

For me their price is a deal breaker because I don't want to sink thousands of dollars into digitizing my LPs. So I will use one of the above methods.
But they seem to be going after quality and convenience. They claim their click and pop remover are "wavelet based" whatever that means. But I did linger in their suite at Axpona and liked what I heard and would get my wallet out if the prices were more reasonable.

Agreed. I have maybe a hundred LPs to archive so those devices are just too much money. I have a half-dozen or more phono preamps here to choose from and two ADCs to try out, not to mention any number of computer-based audio processors with declicking functions I can use. I think Sweet Vinyl is priced for and aimed at a very narrow market. But that's just one retiree's opinion

 

[Robin L]

First; which audio processing software allows digital RIAA correction? I don't have any installed yet so I just don't know and the adverts aren't always complete about features. Second; I've seen outputs of LP captures vs factory CD captures of the same song (same album, reissued in CD format), and observed that the CD version often showed excessive compression compared to the relative dynamics on the LP. Maybe this is the Phil Specter "Wall of Sound" engineering approach? Anyway, good luck with your endeavor - I have about a hundred LPs to archive, some are collector albums so I'm in no hurry to be rid of them.

No, nothing to do with Phil Spector. His productions had plenty of compression and that was pretty influential, but what you're speaking of is a 21st century problem. It's called "brickwalling", it became a "thing" during the peak years of CD sales. This mostly applied to new recordings of pop, rare in jazz, very rare in classical, very common in metal, hip-hop, dance-pop. It boiled down to people shuffling between discs in their cars and hearing some CDs as louder than others. The Money People figured the loudest wins, and so on. It's less of a thing now, far as I can tell. It's definitely a marketing thing, more than anything else. I'll bet the whole process drives mastering engineers nuts.

 

[Darth Bubba]

No, nothing to do with Phil Spector. His productions had plenty of compression and that was pretty influential, but what you're speaking of is a 21st century problem. It's called "brickwalling", it became a "thing" during the peak years of CD sales. This mostly applied to new recordings of pop, rare in jazz, very rare in classical, very common in metal, hip-hop, dance-pop. It boiled down to people shuffling between discs in their cars and hearing some CDs as louder than others. The Money People figured the loudest wins, and so on. It's less of a thing now, far as I can tell. It's definitely a marketing thing, more than anything else. I'll bet the whole process drives mastering engineers nuts.

The whole brickwalling process is driving me nuts, too. But it was there in some form even in the 80s and 90s when the labels started reissuing just about everything in their LP catalogs as CDs. The CD reissues of some of my favorite albums sounded different than the LP versions. I didn't have time to study it then, but many people have done so over the years and I think the above answer is the most convincing. Good listening to you!

 

[Blumlein 88]

The whole brickwalling process is driving me nuts, too. But it was there in some form even in the 80s and 90s when the labels started reissuing just about everything in their LP catalogs as CDs. The CD reissues of some of my favorite albums sounded different than the LP versions. I didn't have time to study it then, but many people have done so over the years and I think the above answer is the most convincing. Good listening to you!

A few of my friends and I got together for an interesting comparison back in the early 1990s. We put together as many albums as we could that we had the CD, reel to reel tape (pre-recorded some at 15 ips most at 7.5) and LP. We did this three different times on three different systems all of which were pretty high quality for the times. Most CDs were 1st issued CDs and didn't yet get extra compression. We couldn't know if the mastering was much different or not. We know you had to have a different master for LP than for RTR.

We were all struck by an unexpected result. Within reason the RTR and CD sounded rather similar. LP was in every single instance the odd man out on sound. There were differences in frequency extremes and some hiss on RTR vs CD, but the general balance was the same. LP was never the same. We had two Revox tape machines and I think the other was one of the Sony pro machines. TT's were a Sota, a Rega and Linn. Speakers were Quad ESL63, Magnepan and Thiel. LP just sounded different.

Now of course many CDs are 2nd or 3rd CD re-issues and most of those are definitely re-mastered and sound different than 1st issue CDs and often not better because of the custom of the loudness wars.

LPs are just lower fidelity. Maybe it is more enjoyable depending upon one's taste, but the fidelity of the medium isn't that great. Good digital or even mediocre digital these days is higher fidelity. If you like your LP's, a good phono out from a good pre into any decent ADC will let you get a near perfect copy. Oh, do record with the speakers playing loudly. That acoustic feedback is part of the sound and if you record with silent speakers it won't sound right. I also agree with recording at 88.2 or 96 khz to make sure the ADC filters aren't an issue.

 

[RickSanchez]

Oh, do record with the speakers playing loudly. That acoustic feedback is part of the sound and if you record with silent speakers it won't sound right.

Curious about this one. Can you explain this in more detail? I just picked up a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 to digitize some of my rare vinyl. I still have a ways to go to learn Audacity first, but the speakers at high volume thing is not something I’d heard of before ... nor do I understand why.