Re: Need advice on a good ADC for recording my 78's to a hard disk

[P Stamler]

You might try the Digial Audio Labs CardDeluxe soundcard; decent, relatively
uncolored, and pretty well bulletproof. The M-Audio Delta 44 (or 66) is also
decent and relatively uncolored, but has hairy driver problems with many
systems.

What are you using for a phono preamp?

Peace,
Paul

[Fill X]

>
>Have you tried taking the output of your 1/4 inch deck into your soundcard
>and listening to those results? It sounds to me that the
>compression/expansion/distortion that occurs in the recording process to
>tape is what sounds pleasing and you may be able to get very close by
>recording to digital through your analog tape deck setup. You can of course
>also try using a tape saturation plug in to try and simulate the same effect
>on the digital recording.
>
>Neil R

what makes you think it's "tape saturation" that people are liking rather than
disliking the sound of the digital conversion, which seems as likely to me.
This whole "Compression, distortion, expansion(?)" thing is not the way tape is
meant to sound, which is probably why most tape emulators suck so badly.


P h i l i p

______________________________

"I'm too ****ing busy and vice-versa"

- Dorothy Parker

[Rob Reedijk]

Fill X > wrote:
>>
> what makes you think it's "tape saturation" that people are liking rather than
> disliking the sound of the digital conversion, which seems as likely to me.
> This whole "Compression, distortion, expansion(?)" thing is not the way tape is
> meant to sound, which is probably why most tape emulators suck so badly.

The one in the AD500 was particularly bad.

Rob R.

[Greg Bianchini]

> Please advice which units I should try.

I like the sound of Apogee converters quite a bit. Wish I could afford
them. Also, although this is a little controversial here, I would
record at a high sample rate if possible. 88.2 at least. IME cheap
converters always sound better if you do this and then dither down to
16/44.1.

Sounds to me like the AG horns are showing you the limits of your
digital system. I don't buy for a second that the analog recording is
adding euphonic distortion and that's why it is more pleasing.

Just my opinion.

Greg B

[Margaret von Busenhalter]

"Neil Rutman" > wrote in message
...
> Have you tried taking the output of your 1/4 inch deck into your soundcard
> and listening to those results? It sounds to me that the
> compression/expansion/distortion that occurs in the recording process to
> tape is what sounds pleasing and you may be able to get very close by
> recording to digital through your analog tape deck setup. You can of
course
> also try using a tape saturation plug in to try and simulate the same
effect
> on the digital recording.


Just tried it over the weekend and the results were equally disappointing.


Cheers,

Margaret

[Margaret von Busenhalter]

"Tonebarge" > wrote in message
...
>
> A suggestion would be to try a studio rental agency. There are plenty of
them
> in Texas.

How about Guitar Center? A free 30 day trial... :-)


> You could also try local studios in San Antonio as some studios will
> rent their equipment. Rent one of each to see which does the thing for
you.
> There's Weiss, Pacific MT, Manley and on and on.

Manley? Eve Anna? Must be good stuff!

>When you've nailed down your
> fave you can buy one (or continue renting - but with a collection the size
of
> yours it may work out better to purchase). You've got some nice, high end
> stuff in your collection of gear and you might as well go the same route
with
> the ADC. No matter which unit is suggested or recommended it will take
your
> own discerning ears to make the final choice.

You're right. I see my project lasting a lot longer than I anticipated...

> I just +love+ your name, BTW.
>

I'm glad you do. I know a couple of individuals who'd readily disagree with
you. Oh well!


Cheers,

Margaret

[Monte P McGuire]

In article >,
Margaret von Busenhalter > wrote:
>Apogee seems to be prominent in pro circles but it is undeniably expensive.
>I wonder if there are used ones around?

Yes, but they're not all that expensive compared to the best
converters you can get. Furthermore, I find that I really dislike
their D/A converters, and only like their A/Ds, so take that as a
suggestion when putting a system together. Apogee makes nice A/Ds,
and I have few problems with using them, but they're not the best
possible.


Best,

Monte McGuire

[Arny Krueger]

"Margaret von Busenhalter" > wrote in message


> "P Stamler" > wrote in message
> ...

>> You might try the Digital Audio Labs CardDeluxe soundcard; decent,
>> relatively uncolored, and pretty well bulletproof.

I've got 2 Card Deluxe that I use for various purposes. I've seen them
totally not work (not even recognized) on motherboards with Nvidia and
older Via chipsets. I've also see them work wonderfully on motherboards with
current-model Via chipsets.

>> The M-Audio Delta
>> 44 (or 66) is also decent and relatively uncolored, but has hairy
>> driver problems with many systems.

I have 3 Delta series cards on hand - a AP2496, a Delta 66, and a Delta
1010. I saw some crazy weirdness with some early Delta-series drivers maybe
2 years back, even on a middle-of-the-road Intel Chipset motherboard (Asus
P3BF).

Yesterday I saw a Delta 1010 recording 3.5 hours of 10 tracks at 24 bits,
on a Via chipset motherboard with no problems.

> I wonder if my 1GHz Athlon with 512 Mb of RAM and 10,000 RPM Cheetah
> HD is still up to the task?

For sure. Overkill.

To digitize vinyl all you need to do is record at most 2 channels at 44.1
KHz. Should be very easy, even on a 300 MHz system with a 6 GB 5400 rpm hard
drive.

>Also many people claim that the AMD processors have problems with hi-end
cards.

At PCAVTech, I presently test high end cards exclusively with AMD
processors.

When people say they have problems with AMD processors they aren't quite
telling the whole story, probably because they didn't know the whole story.

The problems they encountered were real, but they weren't with the
processors themselves, but with the chipsets that supported the processors.
This situation was exasperated by the fact that the first chipset that was
available for Athlons was from VIA who had just settled a suit with Intel
and had to re-engineer LOTS.

In the early days of Athlon CPUs, the VIA chipset was not 100% Intel
chipset compatible, or anything like it. They beat their then-current
product into some kind of useful shape with what seemed like hourly updates
to the motherboard drivers - the well-known 4-in-1 driver pack from the
Vaiarena web site. Today I build systems with the latest Via chipsets and
they just work.

At PCAVTech, I presently test high end cards exclusively with AMD processors
on a motherboard (ECS K7S5A) that uses a SiS chipset.

[atticus]

If you are on a budget I'd recommend the Lynx L22 card.

[Tonebarge]

Margaret von Busenhalter wrote:

> "Tonebarge" > wrote in message
> ...
> >
> > A suggestion would be to try a studio rental agency. There are plenty of
> them
> > in Texas.
>
> How about Guitar Center? A free 30 day trial... :-)

Anything's possible... :•)

> > You could also try local studios in San Antonio as some studios will
> > rent their equipment. Rent one of each to see which does the thing for
> you.
> > There's Weiss, Pacific MT, Manley and on and on.
>
> Manley? Eve Anna? Must be good stuff!

Yup.

> >When you've nailed down your
> > fave you can buy one (or continue renting - but with a collection the size
> of
> > yours it may work out better to purchase). You've got some nice, high end
> > stuff in your collection of gear and you might as well go the same route
> with
> > the ADC. No matter which unit is suggested or recommended it will take
> your
> > own discerning ears to make the final choice.
>
> You're right. I see my project lasting a lot longer than I anticipated...
>
> > I just +love+ your name, BTW.
> >
>
> I'm glad you do. I know a couple of individuals who'd readily disagree with
> you. Oh well!

Ahem, but yes. One of the more onerous is treating you quite politely here, as
opposed to their treatment of you elsewhere. Funny thing, that.

Cheers,

TB
--
All tribal myths are true, for a given value of "true"