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In Reply to: RE: Is the Alesis Masterlink still the gold standard for vinyl ripping ? posted by Ross on March 14, 2012 at 05:01:04
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I have no exposure to the Alesis but the PV approach is much more flexible albeit more expensive than a used Alesis.
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A friend who tried told me that, all the track splitting is saved in a separate file which doesn't run outside the software. So if I move the files I've recorded to a NAS Id lose it and I would be left with a giant A side and B side of vinyl rip.
And I am not too convinced of digitally done RIAA. Quite often what you lose is the dynamics. I prefer the sound of my phono stage AND preamp intact. My friend also ended doing the same using his valve phono in place of their RIAA curve.
You can also render (split) to individual files - and even downconvert in the process.
And if you were to lose the file containing the track information, you could always slice the file PV created using other audio tools. The music itself can be stored as AIFF during the recording process. PV makes one file containing the entire album.
Also, you don't have to have PV to apply RIAA. You can record directly from a phono stage. This is what I've been doing.
I've been using a Roland FA-66 FireWire interface. I selected this because it has RCA inputs. It does a fine job considering its price. Direct playback of the LP is still superior. But my rips beat most commercial CDs and even high res purchases from HDTracks.
But my rips beat most commercial CDs and even high res purchases from HDTracks.
That has been my experience as well. A friend brought bunch of high res. files he purchased from reputable places and we were stunned that they sounded worse than a Red Book CD played on my CD player.
Even a screwed up ripping ( it was extremely cumbersome jury rigged process ) out of my humble not LP12 easily beat the high res. files.
Getting back to Pure Vinyl, my understanding via a friend who was using the PV informed that its drawback is that the splitted files sit within THEIR software on the replay source computer. So if you were to move that files to NAS, you lose all the tune splitting info is my understanding.
Yes. I know you can record off either phono or of preamp using Pure Vinyl. And so far several friends who done it always preferred their favourite phonostage. ( makes sense as they all have different colours )
I don't have enough actual user experience on various hardware yet. All I've done so far is listening to various rips done in a different methods. It gets even difficult when we know every vinyl sounds different too.
I've been using a Roland FA-66 FireWire interface. I selected this because it has RCA inputs. It does a fine job considering its price. Direct playback of the LP is still superior.
I haven't heard a good enough *budget* digital replay rivaling my favourite analogue replay. I've a feeling PC Audio done right can be very good as well as can be very costly. It seems that the format is still a tad premature and even if/when they grow up, I doubt they'll take over the vinyl replay entirely.
A friend brought bunch of high res. files he purchased from reputable places and we were stunned that they sounded worse than a Red Book CD played on my CD player.
I can't say that I've encountered a high res file that sounded worse than the Red Book CD. Equal yes, but worse no. But I have no doubt that it's possible that a high res file could sound worse.
There's as much variability in high res masterings as there is in various issues of vinyl. There's some really good stuff out there, and lots of not-so-good stuff too. An audiophile CD mastering from say MoFi or DCC has a really good chance of beating a high res download sourced from one of the majors. The majors just don't take the time to do it right, often not even using the original master tape.
Getting back to Pure Vinyl, my understanding via a friend who was using the PV informed that its drawback is that the splitted files sit within THEIR software on the replay source computer. So if you were to move that files to NAS, you lose all the tune splitting info is my understanding.
I can see where your friend might be coming from. What he says is half right.
There are two ways to add songs to iTunes using Pure Vinyl: 1) you can split the songs and add them yourself, or 2) you can create bookmark files which PV will add to iTunes.
Bookmarks, according to the manual, are virtual tracks placed in iTunes that "point to offsets in the original recording". "This avoids having to commit extra disk space for the rendered tracks if you don't need the tracks to be portable".
If the original recording is moved, the bookmarks will be broken since they will still be pointing at the old location.
The splits aren't lost though. These are still retained in the "sidecar" file that PV creates, which is stored in the same directory as the original recording. It's fairly easy to regenerate the iTunes bookmarks for a single album. It would be a huge hassle to do this for many albums.
The key takeaway here is that some consideration should be given to where you store your files - and whether you split songs or create bookmarks. I have opted to split the songs and drop them into iTunes manually.
Also, if one really wanted to move these files to a NAS, the use of a symbolic link or folder alias could fool these bookmarks into thing the original files had not been moved.
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Don't know about the track splitting but it seems to me if you use a program that splits it and creates a separate file for each song it would be impossible to lose. Just guessing, never tried it.
I too was very skeptical about digital RIAA but it works. Hard to lose dynamics with a 24/192 ADC. In any case, the OP is looking to digitize some vinyl so you have to do an A to D at some point.
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I use it as ADC with low output MC cartridge into mic inputs and also as a 6 channel DAC all connected firewire to the Mac Mini using Pure Vinyl. I modified the RME to be transformer coupled straight off the DAC chips direct to my 6 channel amp. System is triamped using the digital crossover in PV.
I don't have very many 24/192 files as I find it too much trouble to deal with the process. Others seem to enjoy it. For the most part I just play records and don't bother to record them.
You can find my system under Herman over at Audiogon
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I hope to get to listen to Naims 24/192 files vs. the vinyl version.
My past dealing with 24/192 is hit and miss. Some of them sounded marvelous whilst others they hardly justified the file size it took compared to the 24/96 ripped files.
Like anything I learnt that the quality of front end ( in this case AD ) does matter as well as the quality of PC.
I agree that the process is extremely cumbersome. IT seems there is no good turn key method.
Nice program but it's for the Apple world only.
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A Mac Mini is around $600 which is a pittance in the world of high end audio. The program is a few hundred and a quality pro audio interface from $1,000 on up and you have a great system for under $2,000. You can also ditch the phono preamp so all in all a pretty reasonable way to go. It will also play all of your other digital files from CDs or wherever.
I would never go back.
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What are the buttons to press in case of placing a CD-R upside down
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