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Are you recording your vinyl?

The vinyl vs. digital debates go on ad nauseum. These debates almost always concern the question of commercial recordings on digital media vs. vinyl.

Another aspect of the question narrows the topic to only what digital recording & playback (as opposed to mastering, etc.) is capable of: that is, the context of recording one's vinyl digitally and playing it back.

My question for those who are doing this is: Is the quality of the digital reproduction indistinguishable or close enough that you keep your vinyl setup only for archiving? And, either way, what analog and digital equipment are you using?

I know of one regular member here that uses a Korg to make DSD recordings who says that they are in fact indistinguishable from the vinyl playback. Another prolific poster here & elsewhere (with very expensive equipment) claims that not even 2x DSD recording can fully capture the vinyl experience.

My own experience is confined to using a Masterlink recorder to make recordings of my vinyl setup at 24/96 a couple years ago, and playing them back on my Audio Note DAC which was capable of only 18/48 playback. Those recordings were very good (free from all the common "digititus" and thus better than a great many professional RBCD recordings) but it was relatively easy to tell them from the "real thing" (at least once I knew what to listen for).

What are your experiences?
paulfolbrecht

Showing 4 responses by paulfolbrecht

paulfolbrecht OP
603 posts
 
Thanks for the replies. Birdies, I'm sure I would have been more impressed with the Masterlink if I could have played back its files at 24/96 instead of 18/48 but even as it was I was very impressed. I said I could tell it from the vinyl but that's doesn't mean it wasn't close - it was really close.

So we have this (frustrating?) situation where we can make better digital than we can buy - but to do so we have to buy records and have a lot of $ invested in a vinyl system. Boy, the recording/consumer audio industry has really screwed us, haven't they? But we knew that.

[Some will say these needledrops aren't 'better' than commercial digital recordings, they just have the distortions endemic to vinyl that some people happen to like. I think that's only a small part of the story. Really good analog and really good digital sounds almost the same. The problem is that there's so little excellent, commercial hi-rez digital in some genres, like 40s-60s jazz.]
paulfolbrecht OP
603 posts
 
Stevecham, recording vinyl would have purpose if the playback is as good as the original (or tolerably close) - as some say it is.

I'm not saying it is or can be - in my experience it's not - my experience is limited.
paulfolbrecht OP
603 posts
 
Ghasley, please list your equipment, if you wouldn't mind.

Certainly the quality of one's vinyl playback chain has a large bearing on whether or not digital recording (even at 2x DSD or 24/192 PCM) can fully capture it. I don't doubt, say, MikeL, who I believe has stated that 2x DSD doesn't fully capture his vinyl playback. But, no, most of us don't have rigs like that. So it becomes a practical matter to some extent.
paulfolbrecht OP
603 posts
 
Ghasley, sorry, you already had listed most of your stuff.

How does playback via the Korg sound via the Playback?? That DAC is one of the very best in the world, of course. I am really curious as to how the Korg sounds compared to it.

I take it you convert the files to PCM (24/192?) for playback through the DAC? So you would be comparing not only the Korg to the Playback but also DSD to PCM.
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