Tascam DA-3000 PCM 24/192 & DSD Recorder ?

Zd542,Dtc,
Thanks for the help. So far I have made 9 recordings from DVD-A's and I am really enjoying the results.

I think, as I monitor the outputs from the Tascam I could try 24/96 and compare that to 24/192.

Ozzy - Awewome!

I am digitizing vinyl, which is a different deal. I record either as DSD or 192/24. I do not hear much difference between 96/24 and 192/24, but my wife does, although it is slight. But we both hear a big difference between 44/16 and the higher sample rates. I would try a few tracks at both the higher rates and see what you like.

The issue is not so much whether you hear things above 48KHz but how your DAC handles the two sample rates. My philosophy is to do the highest rate you can and down sample if you want to after the fact. Disk space is cheap. You do not want to have to go back and do it again, so I would go for 192/24 from an archival perspective.

Enjoy.

"Question:
When should I record with 24/192 or 24/96hz?"

Whenever you are recording from a high rez source like LP, SACD, DVD-A, etc.. If you are recording from something that has a lower resolution, like a CD, I don't think you'll hear any type of improvement. To be honest, though, I haven't tried it, so I can't be 100% sure.

So far I have recorded from 3 DVD-A's in 24/192. The results are outstanding! Brings back the days of recording to reel to reel.

Question:
When should I record with 24/192 or 24/96hz?

"01-06-15: Jaybe
Medieval is quite useful, I use it for splitting ISO CD image rips sometimes. However it is dependent on a cue file, and the Tascam does not create a cue file."

You can also use it to create or redo cue files. It comes in handy if a cue file doesn't work with whatever software you are using.

Good luck. It will take some time to get the process down but hopefully you will find the results satisfying in the end.

Looks like the Tascam DA-3000 recorder will be received tomorrow.

I plan on starting with the Doors Perception DVD-As. I might have to wait until the weekend to get the recording process just right.
Heck, I'll even use the ultra bit solution and use my Bedini clarifier on the DVD-as before they go into the player.

If anyone uses Windows, thy this free program. Medieval CUE Splitter. Its one of the best free programs ever.

It looks like the Tascam does have an auto detect/break track feature. As long as the source disks have well defined tracks that should help a lot depending on how well it works.

If you have a computer with a DVD or Blu Ray drive, I would at least take a look at DVD Audio Extractor. It has a free trial version and has the potential to save you a lot of time for DVD-A and Blu Ray. The ripping is much faster than digitizing the audio and the splitting and tagging is automatic. I understand your apprehension, but a few hours trying may save a lot of time in the long run if you have a lot of DVD-A or Blu Rays.

Good luck.

Good luck.

Ozzy, it would be far, far easier and probably more accurate to split the songs using recording software. There are any number of programs and they are easy to use.

Onhwy61, Dtc, Thank you for your help and comments.

What I am planning on doing is to play the SACD/DVD-A/Blu Ray on my players song by song pressing the record button when the next song starts to add the track seperations manually. These songs will be recorded by using the analog outputs from the players. Then, I will take that now recorded digitally 24/192 CF or SD card out and transfer that digital copy to my external hardrive.
With my computer I will type in the Album name and songs.

I know, I know, it will be a long process and I may eventually look into doing something more techno to abbreviate the process.

But, as I stated earlier, I'm not very computer savy.

From Onhwy61

"Are you going to copy as whole albums, or break them down into individual songs? How are you going to handle artist names and titles?"

Not sure how the Tascam works, but on my Korg I find it easiest to record the whole album them break it apart. Of course, as a single file that means setting track breaks. I use Vinyl Studio to do that and to do simply tagging, It works with digitized files, as well as digital streams. It is one of the few such programs that has a album lookup feature that will return track names and timings. Not foolproof, but better than doing it by hand. It can also search for track breaks if it cannot find the album. There is a learning curve in doing this, but it is pretty easy to use. It takes 10 minutes or less to break apart a album into tracks, a little longer if you need to enter the track names and search for track beaks. But it is still pretty fast. The time consuming part for me is fixing clicks, etc. from the vinyl, but that is not an issue here.

The alternative is to record each track separately, but that gets to be a really labor intensive job. When recording the whole thing, you can just go away and let it record. If you do each track, you have to sit there and hit buttons for each track. Doing vinyl, I gave up on that pretty quickly.

I set a time for the length of the album and go about my business. When the timer goes off, I go shut off the recording and put the next album on.

You can rip DVD-A and Blu Ray directly to digital. However, you need an original Play Station to rip the SACD. At 24/192 you will probably get audio pretty much equivalent to what your hear from your existing player. The advantage of ripping the digital data is that it is not in any way changed by the D to A conversion in the player. There is a program called DVD Audio Extractor that will take the data directly from the DVD-A and Blu Ray and covert it to flac. I would try that first. They have a 30 day trial and the software is inexpensive. It should be much faster and better quality than digitizing the analog. IF you want to try upscaling the results to a higher sample rate you can do that after you have ripped them. For SACD, the Tascam is probably a good way to go.

In general, DVD-A and SACD should be better quality than the CDs. Not sure about the Blu Ray (not much experience) but hopefully they have more dynamic range that current CDs. HD downloads are a crap shoot. Many are very good especially if they have been re-mastered or were originally done in a hi-rez format. The Sony SACDs downloads (Acoustic Sounds) should be identical to the SACDs. You might see if you can compare one of your SACD digitized files with the SACD download. If you extract the DVD-A and Blu Ray files, the only difference between those and the HD downloads should be the mastering, at least at the same sample rate.

I am currently digitizing a lot of vinyl with a Korg MS-2000 A to D and the results are very close to the originals. The Tascam is in a similar league (although I think the Korg is better, but what owner doesn't think that) so I would expect you will be able to be pretty close to your original analog source. That should be an easy test.

If you want to go further, Busman Audio will upgrade the input stages of the Tascam for not a lot of money.

My advice - rip the DVD-A and Blu Ray and digitize the SACD.

It will work and the results will by very good, but not perfectionist. By that I mean they won't sound exactly alike in a side by side comparison. How important those differences are is an unknown. The advantage is that you'll have the music in an easier to access format.

Are you going to copy as whole albums, or break them down into individual songs? How are you going to handle artist names and titles?

Zd542, Thanks for your comments.
Still not sure...
I am only taking the SACD analog signal that would have gone to Amp and speakers and making that same audio signal into a HIREZ digital copy.
I don't see where I am converting too much.

I'll check out "computeraudiophile" but to be honest, I'm not much of a computer wiz.

I don't think it makes sense to convert to analog, and then back to digital. I'm pretty sure that you can rip your high rez discs directly to a hard drive without going to analog first. Go to computeraudiophile.com. You should be able to find out how to do this over there.

I have a similar unit (Alesis Masterlink 9600), and it records to 24/96. It's best used to make copies or to record something like vinyl at a better quality than redbook. If the format is already digital, its like doing the whole thing twice. Convert your digital to analog just 1 time, using the dac you have your PC connected to. The results should be better. I'm not an expert, but you probably run the risk of introducing unwanted jitter into your music, with all the converting. Hopefully, someone who knows more about jitter than I do, can confirm this for you.