[Steven Liburd]

Steven Liburd wrote:
I am experimenting with converting my vinyl collection to CD. Perhaps it
is my equipment, but it seems that the volume level of my vinyl is
somewhat lower than my CDs. Is it me, my equipment, or is there a
standard gain that I should apply to files converted from analog to
digital before I burn them to CD?

TIA

==steven

First of all, I want to thank everyone for the replies. It's given me
some insight that I didn't have before.

I came to the conclusion that the difference in volume is most likely
due to my equipment - the phono preamp probably doesn't boost the signal
to the level where it would match that being outputted from the CD
player. Or, it could just be that the CDs are burned a little 'hot' as
has been suggested. Probably a bit of both.

Let me give a few more details on what I'm using...
I've got a Behringer UCA202 - it takes output from the Tape/Out jacks
and feeds it through a USB port to the computer. I'm using Audacity to
capture the signal on the computer. I've played around with the
filtering so that unwanted sounds are mostly removed. There aren't too
many of those, anyway...I've always been a little fussy about my vinyl...8-)

The initial results have been pretty good. The reason I'm interested in
getting my CDs to match the level of my commercial CDs is that I like to
mix my own CDs, so I of course would like the level to be consistent
regardless of source. Or, if I put a mix of commercial and converted CDs
into the changer I don't have to fiddle with the volume every time a new
disk is started.

I have one LP that I also have in CD format, so I'm going play around
with the pair to see if I can come up with a baseline for what I need to
do. If it looks like I can't get the levels to match without sacrificing
some sound quality in the LP conversion, then I'll just have to live
with manually changing the volume when needed (oh, bother!).

I'll let you know how it's going. Feel free to pass along any more tips
you might have.

Thanks again.

==steven