I've been collecting vinyl since I was a teen in the 80's and really went ape in the 90's when everyone sold off their collections for CD's. Had an ad for years in the local paper under the head "Sanford & Son Vinyl Salvage," and took calls from people enthusiastic for me to rummage through their collections and cherry-pick for $1 a pop. I met a lot of fascinating people this way, including a guy who'd been a Walter Matthau's stunt double for much of his career, with several thousand jazz LP's collected over a lifetime in Los Angeles (unfortunately, two Japanese investors had flown in a few days before and snapped up most of the Blue Notes, but there was still a lot to be found.)
Stick with me - I'm getting to the hardware bit. As a collector, I'm definitely at the low end of the price scale. I don't think I've ever paid more than $15 for a record, new or used, and the vast majority of my stuff was had for $1-5 each through the salvage operation described above, yard sales, thrift stores, or used bins. My tastes are pretty broad - I started as a punk/alternative kid, but later got into soul, jazz, exotica, international, krautrock, early electronic, the more esoteric end of classical, vintage country, etc. Really, the only thing I'm not interested in is mainstream classic rock - I've had enough of that pumped at me over radio to last two lifetimes. Oh, and I'm no fan of modern country, but that should go without saying.
As a result of the above hunter/gatherer methods, I have a lot of records that never made it to digital. Though I've culled out most of the truly thrashed LP's over the decades, I also have a lot of sides that are in less-than-stellar quality. I also enjoy many genres that feature a wide dynamic range. I also enjoy good (read: "transparent") audio. So...
A couple of years ago I saw a thread in the Hoffman forums about the Sugarcube, a $2K device that transparently declicks vinyl. Most of the reaction there was negative, solely because the signal path is digitized, thereby breaking the holy AAA chain. I'm not one of those analog true-believers. I've experimented with some fairly fancy-schmancy turntable and cartridge setups over the years, but I'm not one to make claims about the sonic superiority of vinyl. I like LP's because they have huge cover art, you can actually read the liner notes without magnification, and maybe most significantly, when I have guests over who want to play something, we're not sitting around staring at playlists on screens and dicking around with bluetooth pairing. I also work in I.T. for a living, so at the end of the day, the last thing I want is to be looking at another backlit screen. I should add that with more recent releases, there's also the real possibility the vinyl might actually sound better, even if from a digital master, because the limitations of LP cutting don't allow the mastering engineer to brickwall the mix.
On another thread at Hoffman, I learned of ClickRepair, an application lauded by needle-droppers who digitize rare vinyl (as well as some troubled souls who make digital copies of their bog-standard LP issues for god knows why). This app has a mode that solely focuses on pops and ticks, just the big stuff. That's not a huge task in the digital domain. Clicks tend to be out of phase, so they can usually be identified and then removed by interpolating the removed samples. My compliments to the developer, whose algorithm seems better than most at rejecting false-positive detections, and does it elegantly with minimal CPU usage. ClickRepair does have another mode that attempts to decrackle the lower-level groove noise, but there you're getting into trickier territory ala the much-maligned CEDAR and NoNoise systems, and even the developer admits it's best not to use it unless you have to.
ClickRepair had a real-time version (sadly, no longer available), so I built a mini-PC from a $100 ASUS that's about the size of a thin hardback book. I added a decent USB interface and set up ClickRepair to auto-launch when Windows reboots. This thing sits behind my stereo cabinet and is only connected to audio. When I need to access it for changes or maintenance, I use Remote Desktop via WiFi.
I split the signal coming out of my phono preamp, so that one set goes to my receiver's line input as usual, and the other goes to the analog input on the USB interface. The signal goes into the PC at line level, gets digitized at high res, gets declicked, then gets sent out as high res digital to a digital input on my receiver. I've tried to ensure staying as bit-perfect as possible, save for the declicking, so there's no unnecessary up or downsampling, or additional A/D conversions. The reason I split the signal was that I still had some lingering thoughts about maintaining a "pure" analog circuit for LP's in good condition, but after a couple years of A/B'ing the two, I can safely say the digital route is completely transparent on my system (Gram Slee/Denon/Vandersteen 2CE/Velodyne) and I just leave the declicker on all the time.
The declicking is excellent. I run the app at the lower end of its scale (a setting of 4 out of 14), and even with that, your average thrift-store LP with a huge gouge across the side plays noiselessly, with no artifacts or tampering with transients. I do still clean dirty thrift finds (once!) so as to not gum up my stylus, and because dirt tends to be more low-level crackle, as opposed to the pops and ticks being addressed by the software. With declicking, I can hear reverb tails again. Quiet passages remain quiet passages. There's no longer a metaphoric drunk guy over my shoulder randomly whacking the table while I'm trying to listen to the set.
After a year or so, I got ambitious and added a freeware app called Equalizer APO to the PC. It requires some futzing and some knowledge of working with digital audio, but it allows me to do some cool stuff in the digital domain. For example, I can sum all bass frequencies below 100 Hz to mono, which effectively eliminates things like groove noise and turntable rumble, which are out of phase. Most LP's are summed even higher (140 Hz) when cut, but I chose a little lower pole out of caution and because my turntable's very quiet. I also set a rolloff at 15 Hz so that record warps don't agitate my subwoofer. I can also sum both channels completely to mono for mono LP's, though I'm still looking for some type of physical control that would allow me to switch between mono/stereo without having to remotely access the PC's desktop. Note that if you're declicking, it's better to do any mono summation after the declick process because the software's detection works better when it can compare both channels, even with mono LP's.
I put a copy of the freeware recording software Audacity on the mini-PC, which has the unique feature of being able to record from the sound interface's output (rather than just the input) meaning that it's very easy to make a declicked, bass-summed digital recording of an LP while I'm listening to it.
So this little setup is unlikely to set the vinyl enthusiast world afire, but for someone like me with a big collection of rare birds, some in sketchy condition, it's the best audio investment I've made. In daily listening, I often go back and forth from my streamed digital collection to LP's and forget which one I'm listening to.
Stick with me - I'm getting to the hardware bit. As a collector, I'm definitely at the low end of the price scale. I don't think I've ever paid more than $15 for a record, new or used, and the vast majority of my stuff was had for $1-5 each through the salvage operation described above, yard sales, thrift stores, or used bins. My tastes are pretty broad - I started as a punk/alternative kid, but later got into soul, jazz, exotica, international, krautrock, early electronic, the more esoteric end of classical, vintage country, etc. Really, the only thing I'm not interested in is mainstream classic rock - I've had enough of that pumped at me over radio to last two lifetimes. Oh, and I'm no fan of modern country, but that should go without saying.
As a result of the above hunter/gatherer methods, I have a lot of records that never made it to digital. Though I've culled out most of the truly thrashed LP's over the decades, I also have a lot of sides that are in less-than-stellar quality. I also enjoy many genres that feature a wide dynamic range. I also enjoy good (read: "transparent") audio. So...
A couple of years ago I saw a thread in the Hoffman forums about the Sugarcube, a $2K device that transparently declicks vinyl. Most of the reaction there was negative, solely because the signal path is digitized, thereby breaking the holy AAA chain. I'm not one of those analog true-believers. I've experimented with some fairly fancy-schmancy turntable and cartridge setups over the years, but I'm not one to make claims about the sonic superiority of vinyl. I like LP's because they have huge cover art, you can actually read the liner notes without magnification, and maybe most significantly, when I have guests over who want to play something, we're not sitting around staring at playlists on screens and dicking around with bluetooth pairing. I also work in I.T. for a living, so at the end of the day, the last thing I want is to be looking at another backlit screen. I should add that with more recent releases, there's also the real possibility the vinyl might actually sound better, even if from a digital master, because the limitations of LP cutting don't allow the mastering engineer to brickwall the mix.
On another thread at Hoffman, I learned of ClickRepair, an application lauded by needle-droppers who digitize rare vinyl (as well as some troubled souls who make digital copies of their bog-standard LP issues for god knows why). This app has a mode that solely focuses on pops and ticks, just the big stuff. That's not a huge task in the digital domain. Clicks tend to be out of phase, so they can usually be identified and then removed by interpolating the removed samples. My compliments to the developer, whose algorithm seems better than most at rejecting false-positive detections, and does it elegantly with minimal CPU usage. ClickRepair does have another mode that attempts to decrackle the lower-level groove noise, but there you're getting into trickier territory ala the much-maligned CEDAR and NoNoise systems, and even the developer admits it's best not to use it unless you have to.
ClickRepair had a real-time version (sadly, no longer available), so I built a mini-PC from a $100 ASUS that's about the size of a thin hardback book. I added a decent USB interface and set up ClickRepair to auto-launch when Windows reboots. This thing sits behind my stereo cabinet and is only connected to audio. When I need to access it for changes or maintenance, I use Remote Desktop via WiFi.
I split the signal coming out of my phono preamp, so that one set goes to my receiver's line input as usual, and the other goes to the analog input on the USB interface. The signal goes into the PC at line level, gets digitized at high res, gets declicked, then gets sent out as high res digital to a digital input on my receiver. I've tried to ensure staying as bit-perfect as possible, save for the declicking, so there's no unnecessary up or downsampling, or additional A/D conversions. The reason I split the signal was that I still had some lingering thoughts about maintaining a "pure" analog circuit for LP's in good condition, but after a couple years of A/B'ing the two, I can safely say the digital route is completely transparent on my system (Gram Slee/Denon/Vandersteen 2CE/Velodyne) and I just leave the declicker on all the time.
The declicking is excellent. I run the app at the lower end of its scale (a setting of 4 out of 14), and even with that, your average thrift-store LP with a huge gouge across the side plays noiselessly, with no artifacts or tampering with transients. I do still clean dirty thrift finds (once!) so as to not gum up my stylus, and because dirt tends to be more low-level crackle, as opposed to the pops and ticks being addressed by the software. With declicking, I can hear reverb tails again. Quiet passages remain quiet passages. There's no longer a metaphoric drunk guy over my shoulder randomly whacking the table while I'm trying to listen to the set.
After a year or so, I got ambitious and added a freeware app called Equalizer APO to the PC. It requires some futzing and some knowledge of working with digital audio, but it allows me to do some cool stuff in the digital domain. For example, I can sum all bass frequencies below 100 Hz to mono, which effectively eliminates things like groove noise and turntable rumble, which are out of phase. Most LP's are summed even higher (140 Hz) when cut, but I chose a little lower pole out of caution and because my turntable's very quiet. I also set a rolloff at 15 Hz so that record warps don't agitate my subwoofer. I can also sum both channels completely to mono for mono LP's, though I'm still looking for some type of physical control that would allow me to switch between mono/stereo without having to remotely access the PC's desktop. Note that if you're declicking, it's better to do any mono summation after the declick process because the software's detection works better when it can compare both channels, even with mono LP's.
I put a copy of the freeware recording software Audacity on the mini-PC, which has the unique feature of being able to record from the sound interface's output (rather than just the input) meaning that it's very easy to make a declicked, bass-summed digital recording of an LP while I'm listening to it.
So this little setup is unlikely to set the vinyl enthusiast world afire, but for someone like me with a big collection of rare birds, some in sketchy condition, it's the best audio investment I've made. In daily listening, I often go back and forth from my streamed digital collection to LP's and forget which one I'm listening to.
Hell of a job, with some records taking a whole evening, but very satisfying in the end. EAC is a free application, of course...
