One thing I should have mentioned is that you should do your digital conversion at 24-bit word length. Most decent A/D converters claim 24-bit resolution and some of them nearly manage it. 24 bit means a theoretical dynamic range of 144dB, which of course you can't do in real life. A properly-dithered 20-bit signal has more dynamic range capability than we can hear, but not everything is properly dithered and having a few bits in hand is both easy and safe. If you do any DSP operations, you add bits. When you've finished, dither back down to whatever suits you, using TPDF dither or a super-optimised dither like UV22HR (NOT Pow-r or SuperBitmapping).
As far as sample rates are concerned, you might want to sample at 88.2 or 96 kHz if you can. This is actually complete overkill (52kHz is quite enough) but if you sample at lower rates you may run into audible artefacts caused by filtering. In a professional system using oversampling this isn't an issue, but unless you have specific knowledge that this is how the system does it, playing safe just makes the files bigger. After you've finished processing, by all means sample rate convert - you may find that you get better-sounding results
Is ripping from vinyl worth the effort? Yes of course, if your fave albums never came out on CD. My vinyl collection now consists solely of discs that have my name on them somewhere and never got reissued. Often but not always I have master copies on tape, but it's nice to have the artwork for ego satisfaction purposes. :)
Is it expensive to get good results? Yes and no. If the vinyl is the only way you know the album, then you want your ripped version either to sound as good, or to sound good enough for the application - if you always listen at home on your home theater system you will want higher quality (and maybe lossless encoding); if you always listen instead on your iPod Shuffle with tiny in-ear phones, you may be less critical.
On Windows, you could start with an Audigy 2 or 4 system with the outboard converter box, for example, and Adobe Audition, formerly CoolEdit; or on Mac with an Apogee MiniMe and DSP Quattro, for example; a decent turntable and a new stylus, and get excellent results. The main thing you'll probably spend is time, if you want to de-click and de-noise and do it carefully and at least semi-manually to get a mostly flawless result. Then keep those originals for next year when everything is lossless and higher quality and your original AAC files are no longer good enough and you want to reprocess them...:)
Hope this helps a little more... --Richard E
From: Jonathan Buschmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Thanks. Great info.
I had read some place before that ripping LPs was was probably more trouble than it was worth. Then I saw people on Slim MLs speaking about things like ripping to 24bit samples, and I thought maybe I shouldn't throw away my LPs yet! OTOH from what you say I guess I shouldn't regret having rebought many of my favorite albums on CD. (The thing that bugs me ofcourse is paying the IP rights twice. Wouldn't it be great if music houses were required give you a rebate on your purchase of a CD by trading in an LP!)
Still, it sounds like an expensive proposition to get good results.
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