Digitizing Vinyl - A special case

[JP]

But and still, not 100% as the disc itself is not perfectly centered relative to itself. Even if you get this down to centering the disc as much as this complicated machinery will allow, it will always be less than 100%.

And if you think I'm talking about angels dancing on the head of a pin, how do you think I feel about people claiming to have ultrasonic hearing?

Not much of a sense of humor today.

Not sure what you mean by "the disc itself is not perfectly centered relative to itself"?

 

[Robin L]

Not much of a sense of humor today.

Not sure what you mean by "the disc itself is not perfectly centered relative to itself"?

And I'm sure the laser disc on the platter plays just fine.

My choleric humor is bubbling just fine today, thank you. Think I'll have a few draughts of spleen if you don't mind.

The concept of a circle is a mathematical concept, one that exists in theory and as a model, but which does not ever 100% obtain in real life, in the realm of the physically manifest. One can say one gets "close enough", but one cannot say "100%". Furthermore, many LPs are made of regrind, which has memory and wants to go back to its original shape. So, there will be little deviations here and there even with that Nak supertable that will be audible, stuff the centering mechanism can't eliminate. One can say "good enough" but if they do, they probably shouldn't be talking about ultrasonic qualities known full well to be inaudible.

 

[JP]

And I'm sure the laser disc on the platter plays just fine.

My choleric humor is bubbling just fine today, thank you. Think I'll have a few draughts of spleen if you don't mind.

The concept of a circle is a mathematical concept, one that exists in theory and as a model, but which does not ever 100% obtain in real life, in the realm of the physically manifest. One can say one gets "close enough", but one cannot say "100%". Furthermore, many LPs are made of regrind, which has memory and wants to go back to its original shape. So, there will be little deviations here and there even with that Nak supertable that will be audible, stuff the centering mechanism can't eliminate. One can say "good enough" but if they do, they probably shouldn't be talking about ultrasonic qualities known full well to be inaudible.

What laser disc?

Ah, nothing is perfect. Of course. Vinyl migrating shape to a degree that's audible I find a bit far-fetched. I think all but one person here knows the ultrasonic argument is ridiculous.

 

[fonts]

While I am not happy to hear about your dad‘s dementia, this is a very noble project indeed.

I think well within your budget if you don’t have a turntable already, and I didn’t read all the threads and I don’t have time right now. There are some decent USB turntables, and you can’t go wrong with an audio Technica, probably for less than $500 coupled with your laptop and a CD burner and you’re ready to go. You’ll just need the correct program.

If you already have a turntable I can suggest the Rega a2d phono preamp, you just need to attach your turntable RCA’s into the input, and it will output via USB into a laptop or desktop.

Best wishes for you and your dad.

Thank you mate for your wishes and information. I ended up getting an LP60xusb that cost me $0 (brand new) and did a bunch of copies and cleaned it up as best I could. It was the quickest & cheapest way to go for the immediate need to let him and myself listen to it. Down the road I most probably will have another go at a higher quality recording. For now though - I’m enjoying listening to the other vinyl I have - and figuring out an improved listening setup. Cheers

 

[Robin L]

What laser disc?

Ah, nothing is perfect. Of course. Vinyl migrating shape to a degree that's audible I find a bit far-fetched. I think all but one person here knows the ultrasonic argument is ridiculous.

Amazing how many people talk about the superiority of LP reproduction on account of the "infinite resolution" and ultrasonic capabilities of the medium.

But, yes, I am dancing with the angles on the head of a pin for the most part here. One might say I'm exaggerating. Thanks to many years of involvement with LPs, leading to a rather strenuous divorce from the medium, I have managed to encounter every conceivable manufacturing defect involving a spiral encoded analog audio disc, 78s as well as 45s. I have owned and played LPs with defects as described, alas. This sort of thing happened a lot in the mid-seventies. I remember going to a Capitol pressing plant near my house in Eagle Rock that was busily regrinding some albums down to pellets, David Bowie's, as I recall. And I recall watching the business end of my tonearm quivering as it attempted to track the opening track of an only slightly warped record, one with the sort of kink in the surface that suggests the presence of regrind in the vinyl mix.

 

[Deleted member 43441]

Thank you mate for your wishes and information. I ended up getting an LP60xusb that cost me $0 (brand new) and did a bunch of copies and cleaned it up as best I could. It was the quickest & cheapest way to go for the immediate need to let him and myself listen to it. Down the road I most probably will have another go at a higher quality recording. For now though - I’m enjoying listening to the other vinyl I have - and figuring out an improved listening setup. Cheers

That’s awesome my friend, please report back how it goes.

 

[Robin L]

Thank you mate for your wishes and information. I ended up getting an LP60xusb that cost me $0 (brand new) and did a bunch of copies and cleaned it up as best I could. It was the quickest & cheapest way to go for the immediate need to let him and myself listen to it. Down the road I most probably will have another go at a higher quality recording. For now though - I’m enjoying listening to the other vinyl I have - and figuring out an improved listening setup. Cheers

Glad to hear that you managed to get through this project with minimum cost and hassle.
If you really like what you're hearing, consider one of Technics' recent direct drive turntables.

 

[Deleted member 43441]

Glad to hear that you managed to get through this project with minimum cost and hassle.
If you really like what you're hearing, consider one of Technics' recent direct drive turntables.

Not many companies have stood the test of time in the vinyl world like Technics. Solid machines.

I’m glad this one had a happy ending and it didn’t cost an arm and a leg. Good job op.

 

[JP]

Amazing how many people talk about the superiority of LP reproduction on account the "infinite resolution" and ultrasonic capabilities of the medium.

But not I...

 

[Deleted member 43441]

Glad to hear that you managed to get through this project with minimum cost and hassle.
If you really like what you're hearing, consider one of Technics' recent direct drive turntables.

Nothing has brought me advancement in the sound of my vinyl more than the parks audio Puffin, other than upgrading from a cheap cartridge to a good one. The lack of headroom is a non-issue, because there is real time monitoring if it clips. I’m running an Ortofon 2M black (5 mV) right now, and have the gain set to 38 Db and it never clips. Coming out of the back of the puffin with the coax, into my Topping D90 DAC, XLR into my preamp, it’s pretty amazing.

Also trying a Dynavector DX cartridge next, I expect it will do equally as well. I did run the Denon 301 II LOMC through the Puffin and it sounds very good.

 

[Mystical Boar]

Music from vinyl is not superior, it's just different and most of the difference is due to mastering, which subjectively may sound very pleasing. As a format it's of course archaic, inconvenient and has lots of issues. Ironically, however, in the world where everything is supposed to be be quick, intense and quickly replaced by a new product it enforces a different kind of relationship with music, which also may subjectively improve the experience.

Why can't we just live with it?

 

[dtaylo1066]

I bought the Sony mentioned above on eBay a few months ago due to the fact I have about 200 albums from the 70's, 80's and 90's in my basement. I have not been buying new vinyl. All my music from this century is stored on a NAS and streamed through Volumio run on a SBC. I may digitally record the albums to keep them on the NAS and be able to stream. The vinyl sounds OK, but lacks the dynamic range and impact of CD.

 

[Mystical Boar]

Dynamic Range? Maybe it depends on the genre, but almost all the music I have both on vinyl and CD have either the same or better DR on vinyl, even though the format itself has much worse DR. Of course I'm talking about old CDs because new releases or re-releases are so compressed they're sometimes unlistenable to me.

 

[radix]

I skimmed the responses and didn't see much about the process of digitizing vs the gear.

I found this article pretty helpful for the Audacity workflow. Personally, I have a TASCAM DA-3000 and record the RCA in to PCM 24/96kHz. The DA-3000 has a useful feature where it will come out of pause when it detects signal over a threshold. This makes it easy to start record-pause, then drop the needle and it starts. It will also continue recording to the same track when I pause to flip sides. This lets met follow the Audacity workflow using label markers for both sides of the record in one file.

How to transfer vinyl records to your PC with Audacity

Want to get your old vinyl records onto your PC? Here's how you can do it.

www.windowscentral.com

Marc

 

[jtwrace]

I digitized all my vinyl, I have Tidal and a dac.

 

[fonts]

Not many companies have stood the test of time in the vinyl world like Technics. Solid machines.

I’m glad this one had a happy ending and it didn’t cost an arm and a leg. Good job op.

Thank you mate and everyone on this thread. I am however loving the current side conversations taking place here

 

[fonts]

That’s awesome my friend, please report back how it goes.

Hey - yes I posted yesterday with an update on how it went - was awesome