I guess my beef is that I was perusing the internet to try to find a solution to transferring some of my vinyl to higher resolution FLAC and I came across the thread linked in my first post to someone essentially looking for the same thing. Then in 7 pages of posts there were approximately 3 or 4 posts with possible solutions to his question. The rest of the posts were someone ragging on him for wanting higher resolution and responses back and forth to that person.
I found it to be quite annoying (and also incorrect) so I decided to chime in. But I couldn't chime in there because I had to sign up and post an initial post first. But all I really wanted was to respond to some of the posts in that thread.
(I don't actually begrudge this security requirement but I guess I was already worked up by the time I was able to post here lol)
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I am not sure why you would expect USB to nullify the point of transferring from LP to Digital. USB 2.0 and up are capable of quite high resolutions for audio. USB Sound cards provide data rates all the way up to DSD512 and higher.
Originally, the term "bandwidth" always meant the difference between the highest and lowest frequency of something. The highest and lowest passband frequency of a filter, or the highest and lowest frequency of interest, for example.
Then people who were into computers started abusing the term for something else, and now you have to reverse-engineer what is meant whenever someone says "bandwidth": bandwidth in the original sense, bit rate, channel capacity, something else? It's most unfortunate, and it's even more unfortunate that it isn't unusual: engineering terms often get a bunch of contradictory meanings.
Regarding the relation between bandwidth in the original sense and sample rate: see the Whittaker/Nyquist/Shannon sampling theorem.
Anyway, welcome to the forum!
Then people who were into computers started abusing the term for something else, and now you have to reverse-engineer what is meant whenever someone says "bandwidth": bandwidth in the original sense, bit rate, channel capacity, something else? It's most unfortunate, and it's even more unfortunate that it isn't unusual: engineering terms often get a bunch of contradictory meanings.
Regarding the relation between bandwidth in the original sense and sample rate: see the Whittaker/Nyquist/Shannon sampling theorem.
Anyway, welcome to the forum!
My latest set up is a Linn LP12 to an ADI-2 Pro FS R Black Edition... into 24/96. (*) For phono preamp currently I'm up to the P3. In the past I used a P2 or a CJ PV9... I even used to use Cubase to process the ticks and pops out of the waveform. I mean, the whole shebang... the end result was pretty much what playing the record "live" sounded like. Actually better in the case when the record had ticks and pops.
BUT.... here's the thing. As I upgrade the turntable and the DAC... and ADC... well, what would I do with all the previous recordings?
I gave up. Just keep the records very clean and enjoy life. A couple of days ago I was playing a record I bought, brand new, in 1974, the Beatles Blue Album... It sounds fantastic with almost no background noise, pops, etc.. This is typical of my record collection.
So, I put the RME back on the shelf and brought out the opamp rollable DAC instead.
For digital I use Tidal HiFi with a Chromebook/Android Tablet/Phone USB-OTG. I got some hundreds of CDs on the shelf. I think I should rip them, one of these days...
(*) I've done 24/192 too, but didn't really hear the difference. And it's not a matter of storage as I got 100+ TB of NAS storage at home... just that I didn't really hear the difference.
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You are putting everything in the realm of discussion (which, as always, leads nowhere) "what gives us more pleasure to listen to, analogue or digital?" .I believe that vinyl die-hards would miss the crackles and pops, rumble, limited dynamic range, and the 'fix' of having to get up to turn it over or change it for another one after every twenty minutes' listening...
This antagonism is not valid. I don't like comparisons with cars, but I'll give you one, is it valid to compare an F1 from the era of Stirling Moss and Fangio with the current one of Hamilton and Verstappen?
Did you know that the former reached higher speeds? And why? Because now there are rational limits on maximum speeds, it's about not risking the lives of the drivers happily for the "good" of the show...
So the issue of noise is not absolutely exclusive to vinyl, because there are streaming transmissions with "frying" noise! (you are not from my era, surely, because if you haven't noticed, it's because of your musical preferences, try listening to jazz from the golden age, and if you don't want to waste your time, listen to " Madreselva " by Ada Falcón on Spotify. They could have cleaned that up or look for another vinyl, that same version is clean on other sites.
I mean, it all depends on where you got the source before uploading it to the streaming program.
You can do it from vinyl, CDs (the most common) and also from open reel tape/recordings (the least common, I haven't actually been able to recognize any because of the characteristic "hiss", but what can be done, it can be done) And always the quality of the player of the first take, before passing the analog sound to bits, will also influence what you hear. Be it a TT, (and with what cartridge) a CD player or an open tape deck. (I rule out the cassette, but, one never knows, maybe using a Nakamichi 1000 ZXL?)
Several times I have compared the sound of a vinyl on my system, i.e. TT, preamp and cartridge (obviously using the same integrated amp and speakers) vs. the same author-track (also obviously) played via streaming - I used Spotify and/or Tidal - and the vinyl playback seems more "alive", more musical. In the dynamic range, my vinyl won on some tracks by far. It can be up to 70 DB or more on the vinyl versus only 20 DB on the streaming if I have the best Telarc recording and these guys uploaded the material from a CD produced for a Walkman from the years of the "loudness war"! The latter is just an example, because the loudness war users do not listen to classical music, which is the most important to have a good dynamic range..
In short, it all depends on what we are comparing and it is not such a simple subject, there are many variants, and they are controversies that do not have valid conclusions, not everything is black and white and you cannot compare pears with apples.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonograph_record#New_sizes_and_materials_after_WWII
And by the way, getting up every 20 minutes to change the vinyl is good, so as not to fall into a sedantic lifestyle, which is bad for your health !
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You are probably right about that and I am also probably guilty being a computer person. But it doesn't negate the fact that A CD has far less Sample Rate capacity (Or whatever you want to call it) in order to fit it into a 700MB space something has to go. The only thing that can go is parts of the music. It is no different than trying to fit music into a 320mbps MP3. Something has to go in order to fit it in that file format / size. Grant to a much lesser degree but it is still compressed and when I listen to it (Yes when I have the time to be sitting in front of my stereo system with a nice Jamaican Rum lol) it does make a difference. I hear much more detail in an LP and even more in Hi Def formats such as SACD, DVD-Audio and Blu-Ray Audio.
I have to agree that once you go past 24Bit / 96kHz the differences are pretty negligible and hard to discern. But I have found that odd recording where there is something extra. Can't put my finger on it but it is just more pleasing to my ears and sometimes I think I hear something I didn't remember hearing on the 24/96 version. Still I think for Archival purposes I think I would still like to transfer them to 24Bit / 192kHz.
Go on, make my day, show a calculation proving this using plausible SNR's and bandwidths. I'd take "far exceeds" to mean at least 1 order of magnitude...
Also in signal processing bandwidth is defined as precisely the frequency range, so you and this thread are a bit confused.
Perhaps you are thinking of bandwidth applying to data transfer in computing, measured in bits/second ? This is not the definition used in analog electronics or signal processing in general, but is specific to digital information processing hardware. So bandwidth can and does mean two different things in digital audio, and you can figure out which by context normally. Providing the units will disambiguate. Hz or Mb/s for instance
What adds to the mystery is that before the CD format was released, there were vinyl LPs pressed from digital masters. I possessed two such LPs, and they both sounded like vinyl in the positive sense, but with the expanded dynamic range of digital. I enjoyed both, without distraction from any perceived artifacts. These hybrids quickly disappeared from the market in order to be replaced by the ‘superior’, all digital CD.
Archival?
My man... I got 4000 or so LPs and a vacuum machine ( note to self: get the ultrasonic machine! )..
That is my archive. The LPs are the archival format.
Just you wait. I'm saving money for a Keel and Ekos this next year. Wife didn't yell at me when I mentioned my plan.... so it's a Go so long as it comes out from my work not the 401K....
Did you read my post? You can't archive a digital recording when the source material keeps getting better. You'll be re-recording all the time.
Do you use digital volume control when listening to digital sources? If not, the DAC may be clipping (intersample overs).
Regarding sample rates, when you look up the sampling theorem, you will find out that attempting to record anything above 22.05 kHz at 44.1 kHz sample rate leads to trouble known as aliasing. Any 44.1 kHz-sample-rate digital recording device therefore has a steep filter to suppress signals above 22.05 kHz. It is not unusual for it to go from 0 dB to -100 dB between 20 kHz and 22.05 kHz. Vinyl records often roll off at lower frequencies than 20 kHz, but not quite so steeply (unless a digital recorder with a low sample rate was used somewhere in the studio).
One thing you therefore lose is the content above 20 kHz...22.05 kHz, and in the time domain, you get more 20 kHz...22.05 kHz ringing in the impulse response. Whether that is relevant for humans is a discussion that never converges.
I like the convenience and "almost good enough" quality of the streaming I get from Tidal HiFi over my DACs.
But I love playing records.
So, who cares? I got enough LPs at home that have lasted me for almost 50 years.... I figure my LPs will live longer than me.
Back in the mid 90s I begun a quest to use computer and semi-pro recording equipment to "record" my LPs. To do this I bought myself a nice VPI vacuum machine. Guess what? My records were already clean and then got even cleaner.
To my delight, I found that the cleaner records sounded even better and lasted forever.
Sure, I have quixotically attempted over the years to get a far, FAR better AD/DAC set up. I believe my current set up is way overkill... and yet, I don't use it.
My advice thus is to save the money to buy a good ADC and concentrate on a good turntable, record cleaning set up and DAC.
But I love playing records.
So, who cares? I got enough LPs at home that have lasted me for almost 50 years.... I figure my LPs will live longer than me.
Back in the mid 90s I begun a quest to use computer and semi-pro recording equipment to "record" my LPs. To do this I bought myself a nice VPI vacuum machine. Guess what? My records were already clean and then got even cleaner.
To my delight, I found that the cleaner records sounded even better and lasted forever.
Sure, I have quixotically attempted over the years to get a far, FAR better AD/DAC set up. I believe my current set up is way overkill... and yet, I don't use it.
My advice thus is to save the money to buy a good ADC and concentrate on a good turntable, record cleaning set up and DAC.
In the technical sense it is like that, but it began to be used massively by the electronic community with the advent of AM radio and later FM radio. I have never heard anyone say "my 78 RPM record or my vinyl LP has a bandwidth of ..........." 😉
You are not alone. Mobile Fidelity uses DSD256 to make vinyl from master tapes these days. Why DSD256? Because they tried a lot of different brands of data converters and different formats, and they decided a Merging Technology Horus system at DSD256 was the best sounding solution available at the time.
Why does it sound better? There are arguments about that, but one reason has to do with dacs and ADCs having sweet spots in their sound quality performance. Also, DSD dacs are inherently more linear that PCM dacs because of the element matching problem. The catch is that DSD has its own problem, which is sensitivity to clock jitter.
Moreover, there is another area of argument which has to do with the sufficiency or lack thereof of standard FFT measurements for dacs. IMHO, such measurements to not fully capture the dynamic behavior for all types of dacs. Sigma delta modulators can do some pretty weird things. Some people will claim those things are all inaudible based on looking at FFT measurements. Well, the argument becomes kind of circular at that point.
Not true if you have a good enough dac. Its possible to make a such a dac based on some projects shared in this forum. However, making an extraordinarily good dac is not necessarily low cost.
That said, some people may take offense at the idea that low cost dacs can't be just as good. Its like they feel its not fair if a dac costs too much to make.
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First of all, we're discussing the ADC... NOT a DAC... We want to record the sound...
Now then.... the RME ADI-2 Pro FS R Black Edition is not a "cheap" device... and I got it on a dedicated home run for the digital circuits in the main audio system.
I made recordings at 24/96 and 24/192.... using a very tweaked P2 and CJ PV9 preamps... I can tell you there is no audible difference.
You might measure it, perhaps, but I couldn't hear it.
Perhaps a "good" ADC can put out very good 24/96 whereas a "cheap" ADC needs the higher bit rates?
Now then.... the RME ADI-2 Pro FS R Black Edition is not a "cheap" device... and I got it on a dedicated home run for the digital circuits in the main audio system.
I made recordings at 24/96 and 24/192.... using a very tweaked P2 and CJ PV9 preamps... I can tell you there is no audible difference.
You might measure it, perhaps, but I couldn't hear it.
Perhaps a "good" ADC can put out very good 24/96 whereas a "cheap" ADC needs the higher bit rates?
Could be. ADCs seem to be different from dacs. IOW, and in reference to the OP's comment, there is more information on a well recorded CD than most people have ever heard. That despite DAC chips measuring better than ADC chips. Its also despite there being a DAC inside each modern ADC chip. Curious thing; I can only speculate as to why the reproduction DACs seem to be having trouble reproducing everything the ADCs can encode.
Anyway, my previous post was meant to give the OP some insight into how he could be mistaken about the amount of information on a CD.
Anyway, my previous post was meant to give the OP some insight into how he could be mistaken about the amount of information on a CD.
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It doesn't matter how good your DAC is. You can't add information back in that has been removed in order to compress the data to fit it onto a 700MB disc. A better DAC might do a better "Guess" at what is supposed to be in the missing areas but it will never be perfect and there will always be missing music details. The same as upconverting an MP3. The data that was lost in the compression cannot be regained. It just happens with CD's to a lesser degree due to the fact that it is not compressed as much as an MP3. But it's still compressed.
In any case I think I may have found a reasonable option. My turntable is already plugged into my receiver's Phono connection. So it already has what is probably a pretty good ADC built into it. It also has a TAPE / MD in / out option. I think I will get a Creative Labs Sound Blaster X5 which has RCA Line inputs that are then passed to the PC via USB and it is capable of up to 24Bit / 192 kHz (Actually goes all the way up to 384kHz according to the specs). With that I should be able to record to my PC at the levels I am looking for.
Will let you know once I get the card. Probably be at least a month or so though.
Will let you know once I get the card. Probably be at least a month or so though.
^This is all wrong, both in theory and in practice. You appear to believe it though, so no point in trying to explain further.