Pure Vinyl Software

The only downside I see to the Duet is that it doesn't offer Digital IO, which means you can't add a better AD converter later if you wanted to. You probably won't care though since it is an Apogee and it already has a pretty great AD converter built in. Apogee is a higher end pro audio product and is known for it's sound quality above all. I think it's the no brainer choice for what you want. There is a PreSonus fire box that could be had for 300 bucks, but I would guess it won't sound nearly as good. If you wanted to spend more (probably not) then check out the Metric Halo ULN 2.

I will be real interested to see how this works. I may be following your lead if this works easy and sounds great. My setup sounds great for sure but is not the most convenient.

That Apogee and a laptop is portable as well. You can buy it from Sweetwater sound, they are pretty good to deal with.

Why would he do this? Duh! so he doesn't have to buy the same recording twice, who wants to do that? Plus you get the benefit of getting to hear what your turntable sounds like on your ipod as well as played back from your itunes. Digital files recorded from a good LP playback system can sound really good, even better than what you buy often on CD.

Jon I think the key here is that they state in their ad When used with a quality audio interface, "Pure Vinyl is capable of providing stunningly dynamic, detailed music reproduction, faithfully preserving and conveying all of the music contained in the grooves of your vinyl records."

So no it's not gonna sound stellar right from your input to the mac, but you can spend your money on an audio interface instead of the Masterlink and probably end up happier in the end. The editing of the masterlink is a pain and it looks like with the software you don't have to do as much work to put in track markers. You also aren't forced to first record it to CD to rip it into your itunes from, you can just go directly to it. I still like to put it on CD so that I have a hard copy just in case.

I think you should try it and see how it goes, then look for a good interface. I can help you with that. When you are all done and it's working great, I'll copy what you've done and do it myself.

Also check out the E-MU 0404 http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/0404USB/ for a USB alternative. It's cheaper. I'd still go with the Apogee.

Yeah sure it's a little bit of a pain, but playing an album isn't to hard right? You can listen to it and record it at the same time. With the Alesis Masterlink it takes 10 minutes tops to edit the audio into tracks and then you just push a button and put in the CD to record it to and it's done in about 10 minutes. Not to bad. I think it's kind of fun.

It seems like there is a misunderstanding on here regarding putting this stuff in your ipod. If you rip the music at Apple Lossless it sounds just as good as the CD (no loss in quality) You can put it in your ipod. As a matter of fact the newest ipods sound better than any of my car stereos at this point playing back that same CD. So yeah you are getting better sound from a recorded LP then you get if you buy the CD and MP3 just plain old sound like crap and aren't even worth messing with. Just because music is in an ipod doesn't mean it's at MP3 quality!

I have loaded some of my vinyl recordings into my friends ipods and they have always mentioned how much better they sound even played back on inferior car stereos.

I am using an outboard Wadia AD converter instead of letting the Masterlink do the conversion. I just feed the tape out on my preamp to the analog input on the Wadia, then run a SPDIF digital connection to the Masterlink.

The Masterlink burns at 4X, so a 40 minute LP takes about 10 minutes. It takes longer if you add DSP to the file, but I don't usually do that unless I'm getting stuff from cassette tape.

I can edit a 10 song LP in about 10 minutes. I guess I'm good at it lol. I wish the Masterlink had some kind of job/shuttle wheel that would let you move really quick through the audio. That is the only real problem I see with the Masterlink is that you have to scroll through the audio slower sometimes than I would like.

You need a better interface for your Mac, like the Apogee Duet. Make sure that pure vinyl will work OK with it. Check with their customer service on what works well. The Apogee is a good choice since they are known for making great sounding pro audio gear and it's only 500 bucks. It's a firewire interface.

Did you get the problem with your RB 250 worked out?

Joe, that would be a great comparison. The price of the MSB looks great. The only problem is you would still need an interface with a digital input to make use of the MSB since it is only an AD converter. The Apogee on the other hand is the interface and AD converter in one small unit.

Probably the best setup would be a top notch AD converter running into a top notch interface such as the Metric Halo ULN 2. This is a rather cumbersome not to mention expensive solution compared to the streamlined and even portable Duet.

We shall see. When Jwynacht gets the Duet and Purevinyl running together we will do a direct comparison between that and my "old fashioned" rig and see what sounds better.
I am running a 4000.00 Wadia AD converter into the Alesis Masterlink and the recordings are GREAT! The Wadia is like 5 years old which is a long time in the world of digital. Hopefully it is possible that Apogee can make something that beats it for 1/8th the price and fits in the palm of your hand.