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Vinyl to digital conversion


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I am new to the vinyl-digital conversion world and am asking for suggestions for an analog-digital converter or phono amp with USB output. My turntable is also old and am not sure whether a USB turntable would be a better choice. My budget for A/D converter or phono preamp with USB is less than $700 but I would like to encode my LP-digital conversions in 192Kh if possible. Appreciate any input.

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What is your turntable - its probably going to be up to the job a lot more than a modern USB turntable... actually USB turntables are usually a piece of s**t and you shouldn't touch them with a barge pole.

 

You're best bet is to ask around on some forums find out if there is someone around who can service it; if everything works well replacing the cartridge will give you a virtually as new record player.

 

Lots of options for a converter, if using a Mac the Apogee Duet is a good option.

 

Eloise

 

PS. have you read the articles about converting vinyl?

Eloise

---

...in my opinion / experience...

While I agree "Everything may matter" working out what actually affects the sound is a trickier thing.

And I agree "Trust your ears" but equally don't allow them to fool you - trust them with a bit of skepticism.

keep your mind open... But mind your brain doesn't fall out.

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if everything works well.....

 

And there's the rub. If it's 20+ years old and has never been maintained, it probably needs work. Bearings dry out; idler wheels, dampers and suspensions get brittle; belts stretch and lose their elasticity, etc. And each of these has audible effects (e.g. rumble, wow, flutter, pitch instability). Many TTs are readily rebuilt at little cost and will then perform as well as they did when new. But a simple cartridge replacement will probably produce less than the best rips - before committing major time and effort to ripping vinyl, have the table checked by a competent, experienced person. To me, unless it's a truly good unit like a Thorens, it's not worth spending $150+ on repairs when you can buy an excellent table and arm for under $300 - here's a link to NeedleDoctor's budget ttable page with some examples.

 

actually USB turntables are usually a piece of s**t and you shouldn't touch them with a barge pole.

 

I agree completely with this. In fact, I've been amazed at how flimsy and cheaply made they seem. There were a few at Best Buy when I stopped in for a new iPhone case, so I took a good look - none had enough mass to be an effective paperweight, and the tonearms were less than confidence-inspiring. The Stanton T92 doesn't look too bad, but I've not been able to get my hands on one in person, and it's hard to get a real feel for quality without physically picking it up and playing with the moving parts.

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Agreeing with bluesman here...

 

Here's my suggestion for a budget setup for recording vinyl to computer...

Rega RP1 (£229) or even better RP3 (£475). Both come with arm, cartridge, etc. installed requiring minimal setup.

Musical Fidelity V-LPS Mk2 (£119) or Pro-ject Phonobox MM (£49).

EMu 0204 USB (£99).

 

Other options exist. For example second hand phono stages are readily available. Or if you have an integrated amp then that may have a suitable phono stage.

 

Eloise

Eloise

---

...in my opinion / experience...

While I agree "Everything may matter" working out what actually affects the sound is a trickier thing.

And I agree "Trust your ears" but equally don't allow them to fool you - trust them with a bit of skepticism.

keep your mind open... But mind your brain doesn't fall out.

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Other options exist.

 

And I can't believe I'm about to suggest this one, but as I approach my dotage it begins to make sense. For your $700, you could get 50+ new CDs or 100+ used ones and rip them to FLACs free with Foobar. You'll get better sound than you will from ripping old records on a consumer-quality turntable / arm / cartridge. It'll take a tiny fraction of the time, and you won't have to scrub each record before ripping and post-process each file afterward to reduce the extraneous background noises to a tolerable level. You won't have to key in the metadata manually or break up each album side into individual tracks.

 

I reached the above conclusion after ripping a few of my 800+ album vinyl collection on my Thorens TD-125 Mk II / SME. I truly love these records - I've collected them over 5+ decades and most are pristine (or, at least, I thought they were before I ripped them to FLACs and listened to the files). But I'll be content to listen to them when I'm in the mood to drop a needle, and the FLACs ripped from CDs are quite fine the other 99% of my listening time.

 

If you really want to economize, you could buy, rip and resell 500+ used CDs for your $700. And if you really love vinyl, buy the best table / arm / cartridge / phono stage you can for your $700 and enjoy your vinyl the way it was meant to be enjoyed. No matter what you decide to do, enjoy it to the max!

 

David

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If you really want to economize, you could buy, rip and resell 500+ used CDs for your $700. And if you really love vinyl, buy the best table / arm / cartridge / phono stage you can for your $700 and enjoy your vinyl the way it was meant to be enjoyed. No matter what you decide to do, enjoy it to the max!

NO, NO and again NO.

 

If you buy, rip and then resell your CDs, you no longer have any legal (or to my mind moral) right to play the music you ripped!! If you sell a CD then you MUST delete any rip you have of it.

 

Eloise

Eloise

---

...in my opinion / experience...

While I agree "Everything may matter" working out what actually affects the sound is a trickier thing.

And I agree "Trust your ears" but equally don't allow them to fool you - trust them with a bit of skepticism.

keep your mind open... But mind your brain doesn't fall out.

Link to comment
NO, NO and again NO.

 

If you buy, rip and then resell your CDs, you no longer have any legal (or to my mind moral) right to play the music you ripped!! If you sell a CD then you MUST delete any rip you have of it.

 

Eloise

 

Hmmm - I believe the "fair use" doctrine does allow you to listen to it yourself. Music piracy is generally defined as the illegal use of a music CD by reproducing, copying, sharing or distributing it for commercial purposes. Copyright laws define several rights to fair use that consider the effect of the use of the copyrighted material on the value of or the projected market of the music CD, the purpose of use, and whether that use is not for profit, educational and/or noncommercial. In these cases, the right to fair use seems to protect against legal action - and I believe that includes ripping a CD for your own personal use at home.

 

It's clearly legal to display and resell a copyrighted music CD you bought legally, per the "first sale doctrine" in US Code 17 USC 109 (copyright law). If the CD you're trying to sell was made without the content owner's consent and you knew or should have known by virtue of the circumstances under which you obtained it, you're violating the law. But you can legally buy and sell used CDs, vinyl, tapes etc unless you know they were made without the authorization of the rightful owner or were stolen.

 

So if it's legal to rip it, it's legal to listen to the rip yourself at home and on your own devices, and it's legal to resell the legally bought CD, where does the obligation to delete the rip originate? You definitely can't sell the rip, but I don't understand why you believe you can't keep it if you sell the source CD.

 

You might be right, Eloise - I'm not a lawyer (in fact, I'm allergic to them). And I still have all my CDs, although admittedly I only kept them because one of my sons wants them. But I did research this carefully because I'm a professional musician and I take copyright ownership seriously. I'd appreciate knowing any factual information that refutes the above, as I don't want to give bad advice.

 

Thanks and best regards -

 

David

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Hmmm - I believe the "fair use" doctrine does allow you to listen to it yourself. Music piracy is generally defined as the illegal use of a music CD by reproducing, copying, sharing or distributing it for commercial purposes. Copyright laws define several rights to fair use that consider the effect of the use of the copyrighted material on the value of or the projected market of the music CD, the purpose of use, and whether that use is not for profit, educational and/or noncommercial. In these cases, the right to fair use seems to protect against legal action - and I believe that includes ripping a CD for your own personal use at home.

 

It's clearly legal to display and resell a copyrighted music CD you bought legally, per the "first sale doctrine" in US Code 17 USC 109 (copyright law). If the CD you're trying to sell was made without the content owner's consent and you knew or should have known by virtue of the circumstances under which you obtained it, you're violating the law. But you can legally buy and sell used CDs, vinyl, tapes etc unless you know they were made without the authorization of the rightful owner or were stolen.

 

So if it's legal to rip it, it's legal to listen to the rip yourself at home and on your own devices, and it's legal to resell the legally bought CD, where does the obligation to delete the rip originate? You definitely can't sell the rip, but I don't understand why you believe you can't keep it if you sell the source CD.

 

You might be right, Eloise - I'm not a lawyer (in fact, I'm allergic to them). And I still have all my CDs, although admittedly I only kept them because one of my sons wants them. But I did research this carefully because I'm a professional musician and I take copyright ownership seriously. I'd appreciate knowing any factual information that refutes the above, as I don't want to give bad advice.

 

Thanks and best regards -

 

David

I don't think the fair useage doctrine works as you imply...

 

Buying a CD you are basically buying a licence to listen to the music while you own the CD. I believe the generally accepted interpretation is that you can rip a CD within the doctrine, use the rip for your own personal use, but that you can't then sell the CD as in essence you are selling on your right to listen to the music that was contained on that CD. If you sell the CD, then two individuals are using the same "licence" to listen to the music.

 

As a musician I'm surprised you have a different interpretation.

 

Eloise

Eloise

---

...in my opinion / experience...

While I agree "Everything may matter" working out what actually affects the sound is a trickier thing.

And I agree "Trust your ears" but equally don't allow them to fool you - trust them with a bit of skepticism.

keep your mind open... But mind your brain doesn't fall out.

Link to comment
As a musician I'm surprised you have a different interpretation.

 

It's actually because I'm a musician that I believe the "fair use" and "first sale" doctrines apply. This is certainly true for musicians, as I and most others purchase a lot of recorded music for the sole and express purpose of learning to play it. When you're a sideman at weddings, bar mitzvahs, recording sessions etc, you have to learn and play what the clients want - and many of these jobs are played without charts. I played a gig Wednesday night at which the singer wanted to do Try a Little Tenderness, and the first question we all asked him was "whose version? Otis Redding's? Al Green's? Aretha's?" I wouldn't have known the feel of each of those alternatives without having listened to the originals myself - printed music can only convey so much, very few musicians can sight read a chart well enough to make it pop the first time, and no one except symphony orchestras pays sidemen to rehearse. Leaders, booking agents, club owners etc pay licensing fees, so all IP is respected and appropriately rewarded.

 

So for a musician, this is education and for the composers and original performers, this is another royalty through the PROs (ASCAP, BMI etc) that would not have been paid had we not learned the tune. And, hopefully, we inspired the audience to go out and buy their own copies (which they would not have done had they not heard us play it and asked about it).

 

For general listeners, I could stretch a point and say that listening is part of their music education - but I won't do that. ​I think that exposure drives the industry forward - it's good for all of us. I strongly believe that the more people you can get to listen to music, the more they will buy more of it on their own. Why would I object to exposing a larger audience to it? People (including me) will often buy used CDs of artists they don't know but wouldn't take a more expensive chance on a new copy. We buy others new by the same artist only after discovering how much we like the used one. This too is great for musicians and the industry. And I'd be thrilled if someone liked my playing enough to keep a personal copy of it and pass the CD on to yet another potential recruit for the cause. The royalty from the first sale is great, and I'm not personally upset if the disc is resold but a copy is kept for personal use only

 

Sadly, what's legal seems to be no more or less than what you can convince a judge and/or jury to believe - there are conflicting decisions in this area from state to state and court system to court system. I believe the greatest good is served by exposing as many people as possible to as much music as possible. The days of $2.98 LPs are long gone, so we have to adopt to modern times. I'm fine with that.

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I can't even rip a CD on to my car' hard drive. So much for the fair use doctrine. I am reduced to 1978, keeping a box of 8 Track tapes in my Ford Falcon.

 

I have no problems with paying for music and I have personally given Mick Jagger thousands of American Dollars for copies of the same songs on many formats. But geeze, why can't I load a few CDs on the the hard drive?

In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake ~ Sayre's Law

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