LPs to .WAVs: 24/96 or 24/192 ?, USB drive OK ?


I will soon be undertaking the major project of
archiving 100s of LPs to a 120G USB hard drive(s).
Does anyone here think it would be worth it to
record at 24/192 instead of 24/96 ?

If so, any recommendations for a 24/192 card ?
The WAVETERMINAL 192X is the only card I have found so
far for under $500.

Will a USB drive suffice for both record and playback ?
Any speed concerns ?

THANKS :-).
mark3da3

Showing 1 response by gboren

Check out the Lynx Two card which is marketed by HHB. Go to www.hhbusa.com for info. It will do 192Khz.

As to whether it's worth it, I slightly disagree with the above post. Hard disk space is cheap. Yes, it will take twice as much space, but either way, you will need more than 120 gigs for archival purposes. I guess it takes about five or six gigs at 24/96 for a typical LP, and 10 or 12 at 24/192. The real problem will be that, if you want to do any normalization, denoising, depopping, etc, those large files take a LONG time. I have a 1.3 GHz Pentium IV computer and a I bulk denoised/depopped//downsampled/etc a 45 minute LP. It took about 35 minutes of processing time. At 192KHz, you're talking about 70 minutes.

I personally do not think it is worth the extra $$ or inconvenience to do 192, especially if you are only going to down sample it to 16/44. You really won't hear the difference.

Interestingly, I got into this game about 6 months ago for the same reason as you and I went through the same quandry. I opted for the Digital Analog Labs Card Deluxe which does 24/96. I am very happy with the card and the process. But in the process of listening to dozens of albums as I was copying them, I fell in love with vinyl and now only listen to the cd's in the car!

Either way, if you can find a software package that will take a 24/96 wav file and convert it to DVD-A, let me know - I'd love to try it out.