cogt3

You could have one made with channels 1-2 loaded for MC cartridge and channels 3-4 for MM. Then link the control knobs for channels 1-2 and 3-4, find the appraise gain for each pair and you are set. The mic pres and incredibly quiet for the MC input. Should be fun. I am actually selling LIO with mic pres, was using it for digital playback, digital phono stage, and recording vinyl. At this point I have dedicated preamp with phono stage and dedicated DAC for playback.

I had Drew at Moon Audio build me a DB25 to L/R RCA breakout cable. This plugs into the mic pres DB25 input. It has a separate ground cable to attach to your tonearm. He installed 100 ohm resisters across the +/- wire internally within the DB25 plug.

There are multiple Geek products coming down the pike including a dlna streamer, adc/phono, preamp, maybe a future dace between the Pulse and DaVinci. My plan for LPS4 is to get the future dac which could use one output for each channel, one for the streamer, and one for the ADC/phono to digitize vinyl. Will use tricked out pulses for now. So it provides clean power to all.

Just updated to the new driver. Totally fixed the headback problem when using the Pure Vinyl. Truthfully I had updated to MtLion and changed to a SSD at the same time and thought I had messed up the computer changing out the drive. It sounded like a ground loop problem which I chased for 2-3 weeks. However, I can not get back into integer mode now that I have updated the driver. Anybody else had the same problem?

Quick question for Rob if he is still monitoring the forum. Will there be an updated version of Pure Vinyl with the new 1.8 Pure Music player integrated? Or do you need to run PM 1.8 for playback and then switch back to PV 3 for vinyl input and recording?

Coming from the vinyl nut perspective, I don't think a record from a digital master will sound better than listening directly to the digital files (provided they are 24/88 or great quality). But the problem is, for the most part we don't have access to the digital studio masters. What I have found is most newer recording DO sound better in their vinyl versions. I think this is because the digital master used for the making the vinyl master are hirez studio masters. The only other digital files we have to compare them to are rips from CDs that have been dumbed down to 16/44. So ironically, I think most records are closer to the hirez studio masters, thus the "better" sound. I have a metric halo AD/DA and most of the CDs I have made from a vinyl source sound "better" than the mass produced commercial CDs. Now if we can buy the hirez studio masters that would be great and it would save the time of recording more records, but till that happens I will keep buying records.

Nick, I ended up at the LIO by going through a ULN-2 initially. I, like yourself, was a little skeptical about playing vinyl real time through a dac. At the least, I was looking for a way to convert vinyl to digital at a high level to distribute throughout my house. My initial plan was to use the ULN-2 for digital playback and to archive my vinyl. What I found out was that the ULN-2 near matched the quality of my dedicated CD player (Audio Aero Prima, MRSP 2600) and real time playback on vinyl surpassed the quality of my dedicated Dynavector phono stage (which is now sold). Pretty amazing for a unit that retails for $1700. I was so impressed I sold the ULN-2 and now have the LIO-8 with 4 channels of mic pres. Now there are probably some dedicated USB/Firewire DA convertors that might surpass the DA quality of the ULN-2 (and the Ayre was high on my list before deciding to go the AD/DA route), but that don't have high quality mic pres and AD section of the ULN-2. If you really are interested in the AD ability, you may want to consider looking around for a used ULN-2. They can be had on sites like Gearslutz. If you don't like it after a while, you could easily resell it for little loss. (I sold my ULN-2 for $25 less than I payed) Matt

I too jumped on the MH LIO sale train. LIO has been running for 48 hrs so far, really haven't had the time to sit down and listen yet. I also ended up here with the wish to transfer my vinyl, however I started with a ULN-2 for Christmas. To my surprise it worked so well I sold my phono stage and then made to decision to jump up to the LIO. Will be a bit before I get to try out the phono portion, im having a DB25 to RCA plus ground adapter made for the phono input. Once you had a chance to spend more time with the LIO I would be curious to hear any comments about its sound versus the Weiss. I almost went for the Weiss and scrapped the digital vinyl project. Great info about the headphone output. Hadn't even thought about that and with a new child in the house that might be a great option for late night listening.