Digitizing LP’s to Flac Help

Audiophilehi

Audiophilehi

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Staten Island, New York
So I’m looking to start digitizing my LP’s to flac or possibly DSD files. The obvious is to get an analog to digital converter and software for my MAC. Anything else and also how?

For an ADC I was looking at the BEHRINGER U-Phoria UMC202HD. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...ref_=pd_gw_unk

But at under $120 I’m not sure if the quality will be audiophile acceptable. So as a novice can someone guide me on what ADC, software for Mac and the steps to digitize my LP collection.

Thanks
 
Digitizing using DSD means that editing (like click and pop removal) is very difficult. I couldn't do the link in your post to Amazon. Currently a lot of people like the Sweet Vinyl Sugar Cube products. They are quite a bit more expensive than $120 at around $2K/ I went super high when I did my 10,000 + vinyl rips to digital with a Pacific Microsonics Model Two and Pyramix Software, another order of magnitude more than Sweet Vinyl. Pyramix is a product of Merging Technologies which also makes the Horus and Hapi DSD units, used by many (most?) digital studios that do DSD recordings. Several choices are available, with a very large range of prices.

Larry
 
astrotoy said:
Digitizing using DSD means that editing (like click and pop removal) is very difficult. I couldn't do the link in your post to Amazon. Currently a lot of people like the Sweet Vinyl Sugar Cube products. They are quite a bit more expensive than $120 at around $2K/ I went super high when I did my 10,000 + vinyl rips to digital with a Pacific Microsonics Model Two and Pyramix Software, another order of magnitude more than Sweet Vinyl. Pyramix is a product of Merging Technologies which also makes the Horus and Hapi DSD units, used by many (most?) digital studios that do DSD recordings. Several choices are available, with a very large range of prices.

Larry
Click to expand...

Thanks Larry….I’m looking at the Sugar Cube SC-1 Mini. That would be my budget at around $1500 but you know how budgets change.

See link below. That should work.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B...a&pd_rd_w=T3R9Y&pd_rd_wg=xY7zZ&ref_=pd_gw_unk
 
Audiophilehi said:
So I’m looking to start digitizing my LP’s to flac or possibly DSD files. The obvious is to get an analog to digital converter and software for my MAC. Anything else and also how?

For an ADC I was looking at the BEHRINGER U-Phoria UMC202HD.

But at under $120 I’m not sure if the quality will be audiophile acceptable. So as a novice can someone guide me on what ADC, software for Mac and the steps to digitize my LP collection.

Thanks
Click to expand...

Hi,
I use a 30 buck Behringer ADC and Vinyl Studio software on my Mac. Both work well.

I am pretty fussy about sound quality, and have moved from a 500 dollar DAC, to a 1,500 dollar one and now a 4,000 unit, every time hearing improvements in sound quality , and some of these files were ripped using the cheap ADC. This seems a bit strange.

I guess that sampling an analog signal is waaaay easier than recreating an analog waveform from a list of digits.

I suppose I am saying don’t worry too much about the ADC. I would be interested to hear if anyone has noticed sound quality differences between ADCs.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Roland_O said:
Hi,
I use a 30 buck Behringer ADC and Vinyl Studio software on my Mac. Both work well.

I am pretty fussy about sound quality, and have moved from a 500 dollar DAC, to a 1,500 dollar one and now a 4,000 unit, every time hearing improvements in sound quality , and some of these files were ripped using the cheap ADC. This seems a bit strange.

I guess that sampling an analog signal is waaaay easier than recreating an analog waveform from a list of digits.

I suppose I am saying don’t worry too much about the ADC. I would be interested to hear if anyone has noticed sound quality differences between ADCs.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

It has been 11 years, but when I was looking for an ADC for my ripping project, I knew that it was going to take me 5 years (actually took six) to do the ripping of 10,000 albums, all in real time. That meant the cost of my time was going to far exceed the cost of an ADC. (I actually ended up doing more than 10,000 records and around 1700 15ips 2 track tapes. Total at 192/24 is around 45TB.) So we did a shootout, assembled by my consultant of what were the state of the art ADC at that time, along with top software. We had a mutual friend (a multi grammy award winning mastering engineer) run the shoot out, and he provided a freshly made lacquer to play for the comparisons, along with a couple of my favorite albums. There were clear differences in the different ADC and the one that I thought I was going to buy (my definite favorite going in) was clearly beaten by the only ADC that was not commercially available for purchase. Fortunately, one was found in Warner Bros studios in Hollywood, where it had been used for processing soundtracks for movies. There were only about 150 ever made, and most are located in recording studios where they still are being used. So at least to my ears, there are enough differences in sound quality in at least the top level ADC's from a decade ago, that I could clearly hear.

Larry
 
astrotoy said:
So at least to my ears, there are enough differences in sound quality in at least the top level ADC's from a decade ago, that I could clearly hear.

Larry
Click to expand...

This is super interesting. Thanks! I might do a bit of experimenting myself.

Cheers


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Audiophilehi said:
So I’m looking to start digitizing my LP’s to flac or possibly DSD files. The obvious is to get an analog to digital converter and software for my MAC. Anything else and also how?

For an ADC I was looking at the BEHRINGER U-Phoria UMC202HD. Amazon.com

But at under $120 I’m not sure if the quality will be audiophile acceptable. So as a novice can someone guide me on what ADC, software for Mac and the steps to digitize my LP collection.

Thanks
Click to expand...

Sometime in the past 6 months I digitized a few albums. I used a Windows computer but the same process should work on any Mac.

I used a USB Audio Interface similar to the Behringer product that you mentioned (I used the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2) plus Audacity software (free).

I connected the output from my phono preamp to the microphone input of the USB Audio Interface. Then connected this device to the computer via USB cable.

I digitized several albums and the result was superb (I recorded at CD quality).

There are many videos on YouTube that show you how to record and archive your vinyl. They explain how to set up your USB Audio Interface device and how to use the software. I suggest that you check them out first to help you decide which software to use. In short, you record each side of the album and then use the software tools to separate each track and add track names, etc. You can also do repairs to to eliminate clicks, etc. I saved all my files to FLAC.
 
nicoff said:
Sometime in the past 6 months I digitized a few albums. I used a Windows computer but the same process should work on any Mac.

I used a USB Audio Interface similar to the Behringer product that you mentioned (I used the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2) plus Audacity software (free).

I connected the output from my phono preamp to the microphone input of the USB Audio Interface. Then connected this device to the computer via USB cable.

I digitized several albums and the result was superb (I recorded at CD quality).

There are many videos on YouTube that show you how to record and archive your vinyl. They explain how to set up your USB Audio Interface device and how to use the software. I suggest that you check them out first to help you decide which software to use. In short, you record each side of the album and then use the software tools to separate each track and add track names, etc. You can also do repairs to to eliminate clicks, etc. I saved all my files to FLAC.
Click to expand...

Thanks…. I will check out some YouTube videos to get an education and make my decision. Many years ago I made some vinyl CD copies with my Pioneer PDR-609 recorder. The results were really good. In fact I still have it. I could only imagine with technology improvements over the years the Behringer and the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 would smoke the PDR-609.
 
Re: Digitizing LP's to Flac Help

If you want you life to be easier and live longer, forget freebie Audacity and spend 30$ on VinylStudio! It is THE best software to digitize your vinyl for a newbie. It's easy to learn and you even have discogs to to look up metadata and make your life sooooooooo much better!

There is even an option to clean up your audio (if you want to) à la Sugar Cube albeit much cheaper (and most probably not as good but hey it's included!). For 30$ it's a no-brainer!

Good luck!

Record LPs and Tapes to CD and MP3 on your PC or Macintosh
 
I recently picked up a McIntosh phono stage. It allows me to hook both my turntable and select between them (a MM and a MC input, which is good for me). It also has an A2D convertor build in using an AKM chipset. They recommend and I purchased VinylStudio. It seems to work very good but only does 24/96 which is fine for me.
 
Randy Myers said:
I recently picked up a McIntosh phono stage. It allows me to hook both my turntable and select between them (a MM and a MC input, which is good for me). It also has an A2D convertor build in using an AKM chipset. They recommend and I purchased VinylStudio. It seems to work very good but only does 24/96 which is fine for me.
Click to expand...

Off topic:
Randy, I know that some folks are using HQP to upsample/convert their analog records in real time. I wonder if by connecting your phono preamp to a computer and adjusting the HQP settings you could that.
 
I have transferred at least 2000 reels and cassettes to a digital format. I would recommend you look at the Tascam DA-3000 to do the ADC part of the process.
 
Just a few more things to consider are:
- how many albums do you want to digitize? Digitizing LPs is a time consuming task; depending on the size of your library, it can take months. Several folks recommended VinylStudio software because it can add the metadata automatically. I agree. If you have a good size collection, you would greatly appreciate not having to enter all metadata by hand.
- In my opinion, not all LPs are worth digitizing. In my case, I only digitized my 45rpm LPs and the few albums that were not available via streaming. My reasoning was that I wanted to: a) preserve my 45rpm LPs from damage, and b) have access to the LPs not available via streaming.
- If money is no object you should look into the RME ADI-2 Pro FS R AD/DA Converter - Black Edition. It is not cheap (about $2k). This AD/DA converter can tackle sample rates up to 768kHz including DSD. Many folks use this unit as their main DAC in their system so that may be a way to justify it.

Lastly, even though I used a fairly inexpensive USB Audio interface, I really got excellent results.
 
dminches said:
I have transferred at least 2000 reels and cassettes to a digital format. I would recommend you look at the Tascam DA-3000 to do the ADC part of the process.
Click to expand...

I could be wrong, but this unit does not seem to have a USB interface to connect to a computer. In my experience a USB connection allows much versatility.
 
nicoff said:
Just a few more things to consider are:
- how many albums do you want to digitize? Digitizing LPs is a time consuming task; depending on the size of your library, it can take months. Several folks recommended VinylStudio software because it can add the metadata automatically. I agree. If you have a good size collection, you would greatly appreciate not having to enter all metadata by hand.
- In my opinion, not all LPs are worth digitizing. In my case, I only digitized my 45rpm LPs and the few albums that were not available via streaming. My reasoning was that I wanted to: a) preserve my 45rpm LPs from damage, and b) have access to the LPs not available via streaming.
- If money is no object you should look into the RME ADI-2 Pro FS R AD/DA Converter - Black Edition. It is not cheap (about $2k). This AD/DA converter can tackle sample rates up to 768kHz including DSD. Many folks use this unit as their main DAC in their system so that may be a way to justify it.

Lastly, even though I used a fairly inexpensive USB Audio interface, I really got excellent results.
Click to expand...

As far as albums I will have to count them one day. It will be a few thousand for sure. I would only digitize my albums that I listen to often and are clearly better than its digital counterparts. As mentioned in a previous comment, I have done some needle drops many years ago when I had a Pioneer PDR-609 CD recorder. Still today the CD’s I made back then and then ripped to my Aurender still betters any remaster today.
 
Another thing to add is the main reason for wanting to digitize my LP’s has to do with the compression (Loudness Wars) that’s been going on for many years and getting worse. I guess as I grow older I am less tolerant (Cranky) of how digital music is recorded/mastered today. The few needle drops I have are much more listenable as are the CD’s from the 1980’s IMHO…YMMV.
 
Audiophilehi said:
Another thing to add is the main reason for wanting to digitize my LP’s has to do with the compression (Loudness Wars) that’s been going on for many years and getting worse. I guess as I grow older I am less tolerant (Cranky) of how digital music is recorded/mastered today. The few needle drops I have are much more listenable as are the CD’s from the 1980’s IMHO…YMMV.
Click to expand...

Agree on the loudness war situation. Also agree that the CDs from the 80s had issues.

Fortunately not all digital today is being recorded/mastered in a bad way. There are several labels making excellent digital recordings today.

With such a large collection, in the process of digitizing you will for sure rediscover a few forgotten gems that you will want to add to your favorites.

Good luck with your project!
 
nicoff;Fortunately not all digital today is being recorded/mastered in a bad way. There are several labels making excellent digital recordings today![/QUOTE said:
I do agree that there are some excellent digital done today. But they are far and few between. I do like Steve Wilson, Steve Hoffman, Kevin Gray remasters but they are all still a bit compressed.

For my tastes I would prefer a DR (Dynamic Range) level of 14 and above. Just listen to some Dire Straits, Eric Clapton Unplugged, Muddy Waters Folk Singer, Thelonious Monk, Talking Heads….you get the picture. All have an average DR16. No listening fatigue on those CD’s.
Click to expand...
 
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