my opinion is that to surpass widely accessible streaming file sources for most vinyl you will need superior level vinyl playback as well as a high quality adc. looking at your system such an adc device such as the Merging Technologies Horus will exceed the cost of your entire system. if you go for a more modest level adc your result will be compromised and likely you will find on line sources with equal or more likely better results for performance for your Mercury’s and RCA’s. even the direct to discs have some files although they are vinyl based.
and most old Mercury and RCA recordings have very fine digital tape transfers; the RCA's have great dsd files from tape that can be downloaded or SACD's that can be purchased.
https://www.merging.com/products/interfaces/horus
so my view is the solution is streaming, not ripping to dsd256. as the result will not be the best use of your assets.
i have over 1000 vinyl ripped dsd128 files done on a Merging Technology adc while they are very nice sounding, mostly i prefer streaming files. which are tape based, not vinyl based.
YMMV.
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Given the difficulty and expense in playback, I thought about conversion. The same issue, you need really good ADC. It goes on and on.
Now with streaming many are available on streaming, often in high resolution... maybe not DSD. But without the clicks and the lineage of conversion from master tapes, stampers, vinyl, to be bought, played, stored and have a cartridge and phono stage process it... then conversion to digital; wear and pops and all.
Qobuz has a huge library and more and more high definition. Since, at about any level you can make your digital sound better than you analog end. Just little reason to do it... other than for the fun and challenge.
I am listening to the Mercury 1958 recording with the full album notes of Saint-Saens: Symphony No. 3 conducted by Paul Paray in 24bit 96kHz, on Qobuz as I type. I just went to find one since starting this note.
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@mikelavigne The albums I want to rip either aren't available via streaming or the digital version is poor compared to the original vinyl. At this point my local digital library is all PGGB up-sampled to DSD256 as I find PCM at any speed lacking vs DSD for clarity and dynamics.There is another device that will do A-D at DSD256,
the ADI-2 Pro FS R but I have not found any user feedback
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@davide256
agree that streaming files are never going to be close to the vinyl. but ripped files are going to not be that great either. and every little thing in the ripping chain will be added to the vinyl source information. garbage in, garbage out.
so the issue is not how great the vinyl is, it’s how the ripped result compares to the tape based streaming file. just temper your expectations.
and i had very high level vinyl, a great preamp, and used a high level adc, and still i prefer the streaming files. the ripped files have a strong vinyl signature some of which is good, some of which is not good..
good luck with the project.
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one thing i will add is that vinyl ripped files will display some smoothing and blunting to dynamics which can be pleasing and desired in some systems. so the more neutral tape transfer streaming files might not be preferred in particular systems. which some can interpret as ’vinyl-like’. not how i see it, which is why i prefer tape transfers.
or maybe you have a dac that you like that is better with dsd than PCM. especially some older dacs did not do a good job with PCM. newer dacs with newer chip sets have moved past nasty PCM mostly.
so for sure matters of taste and synergy are part of the picture.
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Ayre produced an ADC for the purpose a while ago. The founder was convinced everyone was going to be converting their vinyl. They put a huge amount of money into its development. It was a flop. Could be exactly what you want.
I just finished listening to the 1958 Mercury recording of Saint-Saens: Symphony No. 3 conducted by Paul Paray in 24bit 96kHz on Qobuz. It brought tears to my eyes and shivers to my arms. I noticed Paul has a couple dozen Mercury albums in the 1957 - 61 window.
I suspect more and more old recordings will be added to streaming over time as the masters or good copies are found.
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The other issue I see is the "MetaData"... Steaming services have these all set up.
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I suspect that the OP $ will be better spent buying second copies of the LPs that wishes to back up
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@OP. The choice in DSD ADCs is pretty limited. The Tascam DA-3000 could fit the bill. But you would need to A/B it against something like one of the two channel RME ADI Pro interfaces. If you are doing the conversion yourself, you might be surprised at the quality of a 24/96 recording. In terms of recording - as opposed to reproduction - the quality of the converters is more important than the encoding system
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I hope I've understood your predicament... when I "digitize" my records I go from turntable to "USB PhonoPlus" by ART, then into pc via USB cable. Music is captured by Adobe Audition - but you can get Audacity for free to do virtually the same thing. I've been very pleased with the quality of the recordings.
Hope this helps.
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I've had a similar concern, such as, "what to do with 160 Duke Ellington lp's"? I suspect that you are underestimating the personal cost to digitize a significant # of lp's. Factor in, e.g., a top a\d converter, wear on expensive stylus, cleaning lp's, and especially Your Time - life is too short.
If you don't want to pay attention to advice from the likes of @mikelavigne and @ghdprentice - why even ask?
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@OP PS - Update on my earlier post. The RME ADI-2-Pro FSm specifically, will record both PCM and DSD, so you can compare both encoding schemes.
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@ghdprentice
Thank you for the Saint-Saens reference ... glorious.
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I purchased a Tascam DA-3000 and never looked back. Very easy & very flexible as far as options. ONLY thing it does not work with 11.2 dsd but regardless I used 5.6 and works amazing
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@snowdog57 thanks, there's a germ of an idea there. I'd prefer to do native DSD
conversion but I would consider doing PGGB DSD up-sampling if the source files were HiRes. The Art USB Phono Plus is limited to 48/16, I'll look around for options that do 192/24 A-D conversion with RIAA equalization
@philgo01 There's an application called Music Media Helper which I normally use
to extract and tag audio from blue ray audio discs, easy enough to use it to tag PCM files before PGGB up sampling (which retains the tags).
Native DSD is recommending a program called Tag and Rename
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I also have a DA-3000 and can vouch for its ease of use and quality of transcription. It has two quirks you should be aware of. First, it only supports a maximum storage medium size of 64GB on USB drives and 32GB on SD cards. Second, you will have to manually index tracks. The auto-index by 2 seconds of silence isn’t as reliable as you might like and can’t handle transitional tracks at all. The index by time inserts an annoying "beep" to signal the interval and that can’t be defeated. Note the manual index can be done after the fact or during playback via the remote. FWIW, I usually index after the fact and use an external keyboard to input track data.
Good luck & happy listening!
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I use a Prism Sound Lyra 2 for ADC. I’m a DJ and rip countless records to WAV weekly, and although this isn’t a snake-oil hifi priced item but rather a pro-audio studio unit, as long as the rest of the upstream chain is accurate and not too voiced, the Lyra has gorgeous conversion. Never thought about it but you could probably record to DSD with an additional disc burner.
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+1 @yoyoyaya I think the RME Pro Audio units are worth considering. They have very high stability clocks and very linear ADC performance.
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I use an RME ADI-2 Pro for vinyl ADC.
In my system, the RME outputs DSD256 via USB to a DIY HQPlayer Server that performs digital riaa.
I get the sense that there are not too many folks taking this approach.
HQP has custom built-in drivers for the RME devices, so they configure together easily.
RME ADC will also benefit from upgrading the external 12v power supply.
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+1 audio_guy_uofw
@OP - you will also, of course, need software to go with your ADC, and outside of Pyramix and VinylStudio, the choices are seriously limited.
Prism Sound produce great interfaces, but they are PCM.
As I said in my earlier posts, high res PCM has a lot going for it in the choice of interfaces and recording software.
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I have been ripping some of my records to digital this year and have to say the rips sound excellent and are very close to how the records sound; they are indistinguishable in some cases.
The way I have it set up is from turntable -> external phono stage -> audio interface -> laptop. I record to software called Vinyl Studio which I highly recommend. I believe you can record to DSD in Vinyl Studio if you have the premium version, which I think only costs around $50. I personally record to 192/24 PCM with excellent results. My audio interface is the Universal Audio Volt 2, which works great. You could go higher up and get something like the Universal Audio Apollo, but not sure how much difference it would actually make.
If you happen to have an external phono stage that has both single ended and balanced outputs you could listen to the record through your speaker system while simultaneously recording. This is how I do it with my Pro-Ject tube box ds3 b.
EDIT: I’m not sure you can record to DSD with the universal audio…you might have to look for an interface that can record to DSD natively.
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Vinyl studio seem to be just about the only software outside of the Pyramix system (and Tascam's system) that will record DSD.
I use Apollo's in my recording studio. The converters are very good quality, but the broad consensus is that there is better to be had.
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Convert to PCM, edit/tag and then convert to DSD. For it to be worth your time and effort you will need a high quality phono setup including phono preamp. A high quality A/D converter starts at MSRP of $1k. Make multiple backups of your digital files.
I've converted over 500 albums using Prism, Apogee and Drawmer converters and Spark XL or Bias Peak Pro software. The results can be excellent, but not always. The condition of the record is critical.
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Given the long lifespan of a well-cared for LP and my collection of thousands of them, I long ago rejected the idea of digitizing them for backup purposes. But I do have some favorite albums where the best version by far is the LP, or where there's no CD or streamed file available. So for me there's been a value in selectively digitizing LPs.
I can get very, very close to an LP's original sound. Having done this for decades, the files can now reveal the improvements my system has made over time. For example, it's not difficult to hear the differences when the file (we used to call it a dub) was made using my old preamp (ARC SP-11) or my current Ref 5SE/Ref Phono 2SE. Or the improvements made after I got a Klaudio record cleaner. Or a different phono cartridge.
I'm sure my method will draw snickers from some, but I use what is now an ancient Alesis Masterlink ML-9600. It can make 24/96 files (dubs) that are spookily transparent.
The process is tedious. I don't do it often. But the results are exquisite. The sound of vinyl can be preserved digitally.
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@cleeds - +1 for the Alesis Masterlink. Even though it's old, its converters were top quality at the time as still very good today. I have three of them up in the studio - though I should probably just keep two - with one as a backup. As you know, but for others information, they are built like tanks. The one drawback of them is the fact that the OS is propretary and that higher capacity hdds can't be formatted. But they can be picked up for next to nothing and are one of the all time audio bargains.
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