Interesting Stuff I Found

I'm at the start of doing research for vinyl ripping into my Baetis Music Server/Streamer.

Some general recent comments I've found on forums...

"Unless you have a good turntable, ripping vinyl is a waste. The dynamic compression of most sub $2k turntables and resonances of sub $1k tonearms tip the scales to buying high res digital recordings. An ADC can't put back what's already lost. "

"Vinyl itself is a limiting factor. There is no need for better ADC. Record in 24/192 format, set input level low enough to avoid clipping and you should be good."

"No audio bandwidth ADC is truly 24bits. The Cosmos I linked to comes closest, it'll do 384kHz but only on more modern OSs. With Win7 its limited to 192k."

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Cosmos ADC

"It comes in well under your budget but the E1DA 'Cosmos' ADC is a very high performer, I've not found an ADC with a lower noise floor than this. Just bear in mind its input impedance is low so not everything will drive it optimally.

Cosmos ADC/ADCiso

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Vinyl Studio link/comments and video

Vinyl Studio

To Rip, Or Not To Rip: My Experience with the VinylStudio Software

The video on Vinyl Studio was particularly informative as it tells how to capture meta data from Discogs.

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My thoughts...

I'm still wondering about the first comment. I have two quality 1980/1990 TT's currently but both are in the under $1k msrp category. I have a friend who is building me a TT using a fairly high end Technics table as a starting point and then providing a custom base. I'm. wondering if the comment on Tone Arm and Cartridge should be taken to heart for my purpose. I realize that modestly priced equipment will work fine. That said - how much difference will I hear if I invest $2k in a new tone arm and $1k in a new cartridge? Would a much higher investment point be needed for results to be noticeably better?

I'm looking at converting 1k+ LPs.

Any comments from those who have done a deep dive into this conversion would be appreciated.

thanks

Scott

I should have included that I own a moderately high end Phono Preamp: Parasound John Curl Phono Preamp

I have converted approx. 1,500 albums to date using Vinyl Studio over the past 10 years and would be happy to compare notes. I started with a Rega P5 which is nice $1k turntable, $500 Dynavector 20XH MM cartridge, a $400 ADL/Furutech Analog to Digital Convertor and a Graham Slee Era Gold phono pre into Vinyl Studio on my Macbook. Playback was though a Mytek Liberty DAC.

I currently have a VPI Prime, a Ortofon Cadenza Bronze MC, a M2Tech Joplin ADC, a Bricasti M1series 2 Dac, added Isotope RX for my ripping software which I then export the sound files to Vinyl Studio onto the Macbook. Every step of the way showed improvement in sound quality captured and noise level diminished. The biggest improvement was in getting rid of the ADL/Furutech and upgrading to the M2Tech. ADC's are not in much vogue nowadays but anyone who says "bits are bits" are wrong.

Happy to touch base live.

Dave Sockel