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Digitizing vinyl *shudder*


jtnfoley

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Basically no- I can't see me dumping to CD for anything other than a true emergency.

I am more likely to hunt down a portable solution for playing back higher res compressed files. I originally went with WMA loseless simply beacuse my phone supports it. I do not know if WMA can encode for higher bit rates than 44.1/16 - its something I will investigate.

My current phone has a 4Gb SD card in it. Whatever I get to replace it should have 8 Gb of internal memory plus support for SDHC which are the next gen cards and will go to 16 Gb easily. If I can squeeze a 96/24 file down to something like 1.5 Gb of less that will be around 12 albums per disk and that is fine for the car / portable listening and so on.

Its going to be interesting to see how close to the vinyl sound I can get using digital. In the ideal world it will be close enough to use in the main system - relegating the actual vinyl for special occasions. I am not expecting that - and frankly even if it does not happen I will be happy with the portable solution / background music option.

I'm also hoping that by going to solid state storage (which is incredibly fast) issues such as jitter will disappear too.

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Hmmm....Hard to imagine a phone capable of handling 24/96. This is not an area where I have expertise, but I would be surprised if phones could handle anything past 16/44.1, and only that if designed for music.

I would check into this before deciding. Anyone in the group with knowledge of this?

Dave

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Dave - sorry - didn't explain that very well. The only reason I use my phone is that it came with the option and so I never needed to take the plunge into Ipods and the like. I'd be happy with a separate solution for portable audio - if it offered something over the phone.

Frankly I was amazed it supported WMA loseless at all. It has a slightly cut-down version the media player from windows and it performs SO much better than I was expecting. I actually record entire movies to the disk for my daughter to watch in the car. Anyway 44.1/16 is certain - maybe 48/16 - after that I doubt it too.

Anyone know of any other portable device (ipod like) that would support, say 96/24?

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Then my suggestion about considering 24/88.2 as your high-res standard would be in order. Do an A/B and see if you detect an audible difference. If you do and it is significant, the next thing to determine would be whether the difference between 24/88.2 and 24/96 was more disturbing than the dithering from 24/96 to 16/44.1

From my perspective, that's a lot of overkill and I am quite happy with 24/88.2. BTW, if your phone DOES do 16/48 and CD's are not an issue, you are good to go as that is the even divisor of 24/96.

Hope this is not confusing...

Dave

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I'd be willing to let go of my M-Audio Audiophile 2496. I had it in my computer once, digitized a bunch of old cassette tapes. Works good, not a lot of frills but recognized high quality conversion. This is a PCI card, not external. They're usually around $100, I'll take $65. Still in the box, no missing pieces.

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Sadly not for me - I am definitely going for a laptop and they dont take PCI cards. This can only be bought by someone with a desktop.

Whilst I am incredibly proud of knowing this I suddenly wonder whether that was a blindingly obvious thing to say.

Ah well - doing my best...

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Can't get away that easy, Max. M-Audiophile USB. Excellent, and I got it to use with laptops specifically.

Actually, I've the the latest crop of laptops often have onboard audio adequate for all but the most critical listening. I've a company Dell Latitude 620 that is quite listenable.

Dave

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Max

>> Sadly not for me -
I am definitely going for a laptop and they dont take PCI cards. This
can only be bought by someone with a desktop.


Whilst I am incredibly proud of knowing this I suddenly wonder whether that was a blindingly obvious thing to say.

Ah well - doing my best...<<<

Keep on keepin' on Max. You'd be amazed at my ignorance of Greek islands. Aren't they like rocks sticking up out of the water or something?



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Some of them are quite big rocks and you need a car to get around (or a Donkey).

Interestingly someone else who is into all this digital thing told me that the USB soundcard I already have is actually quite good - the Soundblaster USB audigy 2.

Apparently it does some trick to bypass Microsoft's own sound something or others which are not very good and does something direct to something else which I did not understand at all but it means its good. Relative to what I don't know - probably relative to other soundblasters - but it does support recording in 24/96 and beyond I think. No idea whether it allows for 24/88.2. I have to dig it out and connect it to something to find out.

Anyway I will start there and it the results aren't good I will then look for an M-audio USB something else. I had a look at a site for them but couldn't understand much. they seem to be more for surround sound than anything else - but so does the Soundblaster.

It does have a built in SPDIF. Dave - what is an SPDIF? Do I need it for ripping vinyl? Can't I just go from the phono into the analogue input on the unit with an RCA to mini din cable?

Also reading the whole - how to remove the clicks and pops I am of the opinion that this is probably not worth while. It would take ages with 600 classical albums to rip and most are not noisy anyway.

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Excellent info here Dave, thank you for taking the time to put it all together. I just bought a new Dell Vostro 1500 last week, at the risk of sounding like I know nothing about what I just bought, what particular aspect of it should I look at to determine its' capabilities to use for audio processing?

Just plug it into your system like it was a CD player and play a CD you know well. That's the basic method...

Dave

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The Audigy series were the first Creative products to shed the "Crapblaster" image and are quite listenable. I've a couple of them, one with the very convenient 5.25" bay for upfront connectivity on a desktop PC.

In my experience, if a soundcard/DAC supports a higher sample rate it will support all those standard rates below that, i.e., if it supports 24/96 it will support 24/88.2

Dave

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Since I use a laptop and drag it around to different systems, and since I'm still trying to decide what DAC I will wind up with, I just grabbed one of these

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/272070-REG/M_Audio_9900_50727_00_Audiophile_USB_Audio_Interface.html

$144 seems like a deal, and for some reason they seem hard to locate. Many places list them as discontinued or out-of-stock. I figure toss it in the bag with the computer.

If you're hunting a DAC to fiddle with and not wanting to make a big investment this might be a good choice. Least I thought so.

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A very fine DAC. I have one I use when I am traveling for those "just in case" situation where you find a fine pipe organ with somebody playing it or something. Snagged the 1861 Hook in Marine City, MI a few years ago with it and still love that recording...

Dave

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