Vinyl to digital conversion

Not sure if this is the right forum. I read through the list and didn't see one that seemed to be an exact match...

I'm planning to do some LP to digital conversion, and wanted advice from others on what works.

Currently, hardware-wise, I have a decent Thorens turntable, a decent Audio Technica cartridge that does seem to go high enough and track well enough to play back CD4, a JVC CD4 decoder, and a Lafayette SQ-W decoder.

I'm planning to add a Behringer U-Phoria 404 for four channel ADC.

So, first thing: RIAA. My AV7005 prepro seems to have a decent phono section, and the CD4 unit also does phono pre, but I could also use the Behringer mic inputs and digitize raw from the cartridge, and then RIAA in the digital domain in Audacity, or similar. Any experience on digital vs. analog RIAA?

How about de-click? I will certainly want to do this as part of my workflow. Are there impulse noise reduction solutions that work on four-channel audio? If not, I'm not sure how to handle de-click for CD4. I think the U404 could digitize raw CD4, but it would be tricky, at the least, to then output the de-clicked, but not equalized, stream back to the JVC decoder at a level that it could accept (maybe with a resistor network to attenuate it). For SQ, I could certainly declick the stereo stream, and then play it back through the SQ-W and re-capture in quad from the U404... but that's a lot of AD/DA transitions. Not sure whether that's a problem or not.

Lastly there's the question of what formats are going to be easiest to work with on the digital side. I'm not sure what I need for FLAC4 authoring, and I'm also not sure whether my AV7005 can play FLAC4. Seems like FLAC4 would be needed as at least an intermediate step, though, before burning a DVD-A or DTS CD or something anyway. Any suggestions here?

Thanks,
Paul

SQLGuy said:

Lastly there's the question of what formats are going to be easiest to work with on the digital side. I'm not sure what I need for FLAC4 authoring, and I'm also not sure whether my AV7005 can play FLAC4. Seems like FLAC4 would be needed as at least an intermediate step, though, before burning a DVD-A or DTS CD or something anyway. Any suggestions here?

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I'm afraid I can't help you with most of your questions, but maybe I can address the FLAC one.

FLAC is useful if you're playing back from a network or want to archive your work files somewhere, but I don't think it's useful if your ultimate goal is to burn universally playable discs. Or at least it's no more useful than WAV or AIFF. FLAC's strengths are the smaller file sizes and the ability to include metadata (artist, title, etc). I know there are burning programs that will create CDDA from FLAC, but they're decoding the FLAC first, so it doesn't gain you anything.

Having said that, there are hardware players out there like the Oppos that will play multichannel FLAC, but you'll need to consider whether your music needs to be played back gaplessly or not and, if so, be aware of the features and limitations of the particular model. You may find that any method other than large, whole-side (or even whole-album) FLACs will be the only way to play things back without inserting annoying and unwanted silence between tracks.

Well, I've got the UMC404HD on order. Will update after I've had a chance to try some things with it. The input impedance for the instrument jacks is 1M Ohm, so it should be easy enough to put 47K load resistors on them and use them as direct inputs for a turntable, if the gain is high enough. If it is, I'll probably try level matching for a comparison of analog vs. digital RIAA EQ.

The FLAC4 question is relevant because I'm wondering what formats are most commonly used for losses multi-channel playback. I know that the AV7005 can play regular FLAC over DLNA, but I've heard mixed reports about whether it supports FLAC4 (or any multi-channel non-matrix format).

Please excuse my jumping into this discussion, I have nothing to add. But...what is Flac4? After a thorough search I can find nothing about it.
Thanks!

boondocks said:

Please excuse my jumping into this discussion, I have nothing to add. But...what is Flac4? After a thorough search I can find nothing about it.
Thanks!

Click to expand...

I've been assuming we're just talking about a FLAC file with four channels.

atrocity said:

I've been assuming we're just talking about a FLAC file with four channels.

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Yes. FLAC theoretically supports multi-channel audio, but it is unclear whether Marantz' implementation of the codec supports it. I have seen Four-channel FLAC referred to as FLAC4 in other forum discussions. Maybe it's not an official designation?

SQLGuy said:

Yes. FLAC theoretically supports multi-channel audio, but it is unclear whether Marantz' implementation of the codec supports it. I have seen Four-channel FLAC referred to as FLAC4 in other forum discussions. Maybe it's not an official designation?

Click to expand...

The Denon 4520 supports multi-channel FLAC from an attached USB drive or HDMI attached computer; which I believe has the same core software as Marantz. It does not support multi-channel over the network interface, but does support stereo FLAC over the network.

My dad has a Marantz sr7008; so I'll try multi-channel FLAC on it in the next day or so and report back.

OK. Current status is that I set up the Behringer, and then couldn't figure out how to get Audacity to even show more than L and R for meters, even though it did see the Behringer as a four channel input source through WASAPI. So I switched to Tracktion, which came with my Mackie mixer board. That didn't work because it would randomly stop recording. I then updated to a newer "free" (but really nagware) version, and that solved the stopping issue. Declicked in Audacity and made a four-channel FLAC.

My media PC has an Audigy RX card. It's a pretty nice card (hooked up over SPDIF to the AV7005), but, while Windows can send DTS through it, Foobar just sends the first two channels of a multi-channel FLAC. The AV7005 also played only stereo from the FLAC over the network. From a USB stick, it played the first second or two of the file and then quit. The BDP83 didn't recognize the FLAC file at all (no surprise there, but I figured I'd check anyway).

Finally got multi-channels to play through Foobar using my laptop over HDMI, and setting speakers in the Windows speaker icon to 7.1. That played what sounded like the quad mix, but I got audio from all six speakers... no idea what Windows or Foobar is sending where.

Next step, I think. is to replace my video and sound cards in the media PC with one card that does HDMI and 7.1 audio.

OK. Replaced the video and audio cards and can now run HDMI from the PC to the Marantz.

"Six channel" playback from Foobar of my first try (Abraxas), is apparently due to a known Foobar bug/feature(?) when multi-channel FLAC is recorded at 44.1. Second try was Caravanserai at 24/96. This plays back with rear quad channels from the surround back speakers and no sound from the side speakers. Sounds pretty good.

The workflow is still pretty tedious.

atrocity said:

There are hardware players out there like the Oppos that will play multichannel FLAC.

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Yes, the Oppo 103, 105, 203 and 205 disc players can play multichannel FLAC and multichannel DSD 64.
The exaSound e38 8-Channel DAC is also a popular option for multichannel FLAC and multichannel DSD (up to DSD 256) playback.

atrocity said:

I've been assuming we're just talking about a FLAC file with four channels.

Click to expand...

Ah, I see. Never seen heard it called that before, although I have seen 7.1 encoded in flac. I don't know how it plays as I only have 5.1 systems.

Thanks!