ezkcdude;442755 Wrote: > I'd prefer to do 24/96. Any particular reason why? The signal that comes off even the finest quality LP pressed on heavyweight virgin vinyl has a dynamic range of no more than 70dB, and that's on a good day with a following wind. That equates to less than 12 bits of resolution. And while some LPs do produce some kind of output above 22kHz, its almost completely noise and distortion, so sampling rates above 44.1kHz are pointless.
There are some seemingly plausible arguments for using higher recording resolutions: 1. If you're going to do any kind of restoration in software using DSP, then recording at 24 bit avoids the danger of rounding errors accumulating and infecting the low level detail. But since the surface noise from an LP is orders of magnitude greater than even a 16 bit noise floor, you'd have to do dozens of DSP operations before there is any danger that these errors will be audible above the vinyl noise. 2. Some people think that declickers will have an easier time detecting clicks if they have higher frequencies to work with (the rise times will be sharper) and hence believe higher sample rates are worthwhile. I am skeptical: most clicks from vinyl LPs are wideband artefacts, covering the entire frequency spectrum. They are just as detectable whether you're looking at 0-22kHz or 0-48kHz. Any glitches that are only present above 22kHz won't be audible anyway, so there's no need to fix them. (And of course by recording at 44.1, they won't even be recorded). One may well argue that it can't hurt to record at higher resolutions - all it does is consume a bit more disk space, which is cheap. But the downside to working at high resolution is that there are a number of useful software tools around which only work at 16/44. Recording at high resolution denies you access to these tools, while not actually increasing quality at all. (NB. If you are in the loony camp that believes LPs really do have better resolution than 16/44 PCM and deserve high res recording, then I'm afraid there is probably nothing I can do to persuade you otherwise). ezkcdude;442755 Wrote: > What turntables are good? Look for manual turntables without any automatic facilities. Belt drive and direct drive are equally satisfactory provided you get a good one. Good turntables are not cheap. You'll get better quality for your money if you buy secondhand and have a specialist give it the once-over. If you're looking for brand names of worthwhile turntables, here are a few: Rega, Dual, Linn, Oracle, Mitchell, Thorens, plus the top-end models from Japanese manufacturers such as Technics and Denon. There are plenty of others. ezkcdude;442755 Wrote: > Are any of the USB turntables decent? Absolutely not. They are almost universally cheap and nasty devices with poor quality pickup arms, questionable A/D converters and non-adjustable recording levels. ezkcdude;442755 Wrote: > I have an iMac. Anyone here have suggestions for that, too? Sorry, I'm Windows based. From what I've heard, the built-in audio inputs on Macs tend to be fairly decent quality, so start off recording using those. If you feel they are not up to snuff, go for a decent external USB audio interface from the likes of EMU and M-Audio. (Echo Audio also do nice devices, but they are Firewire - do Macs still have Firewire or has Mr Jobs now fully embraced the dark side?) I've been digitising LPs since 1994, and have written up some notes that you might find helpful: http://delback.co.uk/lp-cdr.htm -- cliveb Transporter -> ATC SCM100A ------------------------------------------------------------------------ cliveb's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=348 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=65876 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
