blairy

Thanks for all the replies. Phew, lots of info there...I've clearly got quite a bit to learn. The Benchmark and Lavry are well out of my league, partly on price but I suspect mostly on complexity. The E-Mu is a bit more like it, however doesn't feature standard RCA inputs (which probably comes back to the level of complexity and my lack of knowledge). Presumably one can get a cable that's rca at one end and Neutrix (or whatever it is) at the other end. Of course all these solutions do far more than I really require although at the other end of the product spectrum they don't seem to be a decent quality. Might kick this round with my son. He's been looking at mixers (korg I think) as he wants to start making his own music and getting it into a PC. Thanks again and I'll post back as to how this pans out. Cheers Blairy

Very lucky to have found this forum... Some years ago I dabbled in converting records to CD's...did this on a fairly old PC using a creative sound card. Having trawled this forum (and various other websites) I now understand that the creative card is not the best way to do this. The discs I made were for a party and I still have them. Since making them I've upgraded my sound system (turntable, avr and cd/dvd player) but thought I'd do a comparo between the trusty old vinyl and the cd version of same. After some jiggerypokery with the turntable I finally got around to doing this and now appreciate that the creative card is somewhat of a weak link (of course the old turntable is not as good as the current one either). Actually, the records were so much better than the cd's that it was astounding. My turntable is a Pro-Ject Debut III running thru a Denon AVR 3808. I'm able to run audio cables of about 10 metres to the PC and had been thinking of installing an old creative audigy (something or other) to capture the analogue sound. What I'm wondering is would I be better off with something like these http://www.springwoodhifi.com.au/product.asp?id=542&pid=236 or http://www.phonic.com/en/audio-interface/digitrack.html or http://www.rolandcorp.com.au/default.aspx?prd=701 or http://www.behringer.com.au/EN/Products/UCA202.aspx or are these quite basic and not much better than (say) a creative audigy or similar. Whilst I'd love to declare myself an audiophile, that's simply not possible - I haven't won the lottery ...yet. However, if the above adc's are essentially basic, how much further up the product list does one need to go to get a cd that's on par with the original vinyl? Thanks in advance blairy