drfresh

YES - now the Roland has arrived, I have connected all - no attenuators - and recorded the first two vinyls! I'm happy now :-) Still, I think there should be a marked for someone producing a ADC with RCA inputs and designed for recording line signal and just that in the same, or better even, quality as all these microphone/instrument boxes that are clearly designed for recording in the field. I like the idea of having different "boxes" each designed for it's purpose. Then - in this case - I could connect my 200$ preamp and the rest, someone else could connect his 10.000$ tube based preamp and yet another "tape out" from his 80' reciever - and we could all record with the best quality our equipment offers. I don't need all the inputs on my Roland for Mic and the rest. But no more complaints from me - I know what to do in my spare time the next couple of years...

Well I ordered the attenuator because I had the problem with clipping on the input of the E-MU 0204 (people told me it should not have any problems with the 651P either, but it obviously had - anyway they were not that expensive and I bought them to be sure and have something to experiment with in case I should get the same problems with the Roland). Thank you for your help!

Pffuuii - I'm blown away of all this balanced/unbalanced talk :-) My setup is as mentioned in my original post: Project-1 turntable Ortofon 2M Blue cartridge Cambridge 651P RIAA Pre Amp Van den Hull Name phono cable (can't remeber the name, but rather expensive) RCA to JACK adaptors (needed for the E-MU 0204 as it only has jack line input connectors) and now I will problably put in some inline attenuator just before the RCA to JACk adaptor. I'm waiting for the Roland Quad Capture tht should arive in a few days and then I will test my setup. I'm voried about the 50 Hz (I'm in Denmark) hum, but we'll see.

@DavidL - is I did notice the RME babyface, but it was five times more expensive than 0204 and as the 0204 got good reviews (also in these forums for my purpose) I went for that. Now I've just learned from the reseller that the E-MU0204 is end of life and no longer awailable. So now I will go for The Roland Quad Capture instead. And try the attenuators - in the first place I will try the ones spdif-usb recommended, just 12 dB version and see how it all ends up... @spdif-usb thank you - got it! And yes I know - everythiong could be much better and much much more expensive, and it's very likely that I have focused wrong when going for 192 kHz instead of the much more availble 96 kHz solutions when you look at the rest of my setup. Now I have ordered the Roland UA55 Quad capture and then I'll have a try with that and also ordered the inline attenuator at 12 dB just in case. Thanks again!

First of all - thank you all for the reply. I've been away on holiday so just got back and read through all this. @AudioDoctor and DavidL - Sorry the RME Fireface is not an option as I do not have a firewire interface on my laptop. From what I understand from spdif-usb there's nothing wrong with my E-MU0204 (it's now returned to the seller and he has refunded me saying that they couldn't either find anything wrong with it) and as DavidL also seems to have experienced the same with diffenrent equipment I might go back and (re)buy the E-MU0204. @Micksa I also looked at the Roland UA-55 but found the specs almost like the E-MU and they seems very similar in function and layout so I went for the cheaper E-MU - it was recommended in these fora. And the Furutech I really like - it's just what I want, had it only been 192 kHz (I might rewise my point of view as there is quite a few boxes like that one around with a combined phono preamp and ADC/DAC USB included but all at 96 kHz). And I totally agree with your opening line - it seems there should be a market for someone who will make a simple but good quality solution for connecting your (existing) turntable to a combined "box" and do just that. @DavidL Would you use the Audio Synthesis Passion passive pre-amp as an attenuator or? I'm sorry - I'm a newbie to all this. I did look at these as they were recommended somewhere. Do you think they will do the job? Or could I go for the ones spdif-usb proposed? And if either - where exactly in the chain would you put them? Thanks again all!

Now I have searched and read a lot on these forums and also participated in a few threds but haven't quite found the answer yet. So I'm really hoping that yet another thread on this will give some feedback. And I hope you will forgive me for starting this thread. Now from reading elsewhere on these forums I ended up with an E-MU 0204 from Creative that just didn't seem to work in my setup. I will not go through the problems (in short though, this lead to almost constant clipping on the input of the E-MU). My current setup is: Project-1 turntable Ortofon 2M Blue cartridge Cambridge 651P RIAA Pre Amp Van den Hull Name phono cable (can't remeber the name, but rather expensive) RCA to JACK adaptors (needed for the E-MU 0204 as it only has jack line input connectors) so I just need and USB2 (or 3) device capable of samling my line signal in 24 bit 192 kHz (I just need that resolution so don't argue about that :-)) that will handle the above setup. And I would prefer one that actually has RCA inputs - they are aparently very rare unless it's a cheap combined preamp and ADC/DAC. I will be very thankful for any advice. Budget? We could perhaps start on up to 250 USD and see...

I don't get it either :-) As I have written I feed the Line Out of my preamp into the Line ins on the Emu through a Van Hull Name phono cable and RCAtoJack mono plug. On the E-MU I have turned the two gain nobs on the fromt all the way down. The red "clip" LED's it lit almost constantly. The preamp (as usually) do not have a volume nob so I can't turn it up or down. And obviously my turntable du not have volume nob either. So I guess I have a pretty clean setup and I can't see what I have done wrong and I can't see what I could do to affect the result. So my conclusion - and obviously the sellers as well - is that the E-MU has a fault. If you can then I will be more than happy to receive an "E-MU 0204 used for recording Vinyls for dummies guide" :-) I am "a dummie" or at least e newbie in this field. Just thought this should be pretty straight forward... I have searched for guides about this but haven't found any. So my conclusion is that this kind of equipment is just not used very much (I don't say usuable) for this purpose. This thread was about the only thing I found... And therefore my conclusion: perhaps I should have chosen an other product - if not for anything else then for more abundant information on the net about it... But I really appreciate you take your time answering me! Thank you.

Well I did look there but not much info. Though there are a discussion about clipping level but it doen't look like my problem which is constant clipping at even very low input level. As mentioned I have turned the line level controls all the way down... Anyway I have returned the E-MU to the seller and I'm now looking for something more suitable. This equipment - like most others I have found - seems to be suited for microphone recordings and amplifying, not for Line input. Strange that no one produces a decent ADC/DAC with RCA Line input and capable of 192 kHz samling/recording over USB... There are a lot of cheap combined phono preamps and ADC/DAC but all of them only capable of 96 kHz - perhaps that would be enough, but why not go for 192 kHz? And as mentioned I already have a decent preamp - at least it should be better than the preamps in the combined boxes... Thanks alot for taking time to answer my frustrated questions! I perhaps did jump too fast to bying the E-MU 0204 based on the above stories. Thanks.

I'm using Win 7 64 bit and my PC is rather powerfull (Core i7, 8GB RAM, SSD, USB 3.0...) and I'm using the ASIO driver (at 192 kHz - and that's why I bought a card capable of that). And again the clipping is happening already on the EMU - the red "clip" LED's are lit almost constantly. It's as if it doesn't see that I'm feeding it a line input - I don't know how it detects a line input from say a guitar connected directly? I've tried recording in Adobe Audition 3.0 and also in Audacity (but in Audacity I get clicks and pops as it just can't follow it seems - but that's yet another problem :-( ) and same result. I'm about to give up - any other good 192 kHz capable USB ADC's around? And this time perhaps with a "normal" RCA line input...

I have tried two different turntables with different cartridges - none of them high quality, I only remember the one to be a Grado. I'm going to buy a new and better quality one for the turntable I'm going to use in this "project". But the results are the same for both cartridges. And as I said I also tried a different preamp so I'm suspecting the EMU to be the problem. Are there any software control of input level? And how does it detect that I'm using a line signal from say a guitar og other instrument in the same plug? I can't see that anywhere and the manual is really not worth a lot. Thankful for any help!

Sorry to disturb again, but as some of you seems to have tried the EMU0204 for the exact same purpose as I have and will you maybe is able to answer these two questions that I have searched CREATIVE's forum and asked their support about but not got an answer for yet. And if this is not the correct place to ask then I'm sorry. I've connected the EMU0204's line input to a Cambridge Azur 640 P-S preamp (and also tried another cheap one I had with the exact same result) and my turntable to the Azur obviously. Even though I turn the nobs all the way down on the EMU I often get clipping for most records I have tried. There is of course no volume nob on the preamp. Is this "normal" or what am I doing wrong? Or do you suspect a falty EMU? Another problem is that the signal I get on the Direct Monitor connected to a headphone is very distorded when I'm recording. It's clearly some digital distorsion but only when recording. And the recorded signal is fine and also the playback to the headphones is fine. Is this a driver problem? Thanks for any help!

Thank you - actually I bought the EMU-0204 from Thoman, but I couldn't find an adapter. But I'll keep searching. Thank you all!

Thanks alot! The Monster Cable adapter looks like what I'm looking for. I live in Denmark but will try to find resellers in Europe otherwise buying from the US is also possible.

Thank you for a very helpful article. I've bought the EMU-0204 and have everything else for a good quality setup as you describe. But I need the RCA to phone adaptor you mention to connect my preamp to the EMU. Could you point to a good quality one as I don't want to introduce a weak link in my othervise good quality setup. It seems like you had tried to put in a link to one but the link isn't active... Thank you!

OK, sorry I don't know all the right terms, I see :-) Set up is this: turn table->RIAA->EMU-0204. Problem is the line input on the EMU is two mono 1/4" jacks (and that's perhaps not the right term), but if you look at the specs for the EMU http://www.creative.com/emu/products/product.aspx?pid=20347 you might see what I'm referring to. And as everything else is of good quality I don't want a weak link here as mentioned.