Recording From Vinyl To CD

captainbeyond wrote: Sean Trane,   Thanks for the good word. Ah, I think what you recommend might be more my speed, at this point. DO you know the model number? Also, what will be the major shortcomings of it not being the hi-fi format?   Thanks Again

Sean Trane,

Indeed - those are the two options.

An extension of the computer option might be to buy a small profile PC - doesn't have to be high spec, so a cheap second-hand one would do - and plumb it into the HiFi.

Of course, it would need a reasonable soundcard and a good CD burner - but for the price, you might as well get a standalone unit, unless pop-removal was a high priority for you.


I must say that I've never had issues with CD-rs skipping - even when burned at 52x - maybe that's because I always get the best quality CDs I can

The speed of burning, unlike tape, has no effect whatsoever on the sound quality - you are simply putting digital data onto a disc, not speeding up (and hence compressing) an analogue audio stream.
    

After a little thought it occurred to me that when burning faster, it's possible that the laser gets enthusiastic and burns too much (or possibly too little) of the material it's supposed to burn (I forget what it is), in creating each pit (or whatever the resulting holes are called) and so could make life difficult for some consumer CD players to read - because if the reader can't do the error correction properly, then it will simply skip over it until it can find data that it can read.
    

Edited by Certif1ed - August 10 2006 at 17:33

Considering your system -and if you don't plane to upgrade-, you can go for a computer-recording solution, follow Mike and others advices.

1. I do know audiophile systems ... I owned a Musical Fidelity amp + Magnat cabinets + expensive cables for about 5 years, then unfortunately the amp broke. So I know how a decent amp sounds (I also listened to better systems a lot, and I used to run a small home studio with professional equipment (Soundcraft mixer, Tannoy monitors, Alesis ADAT multitrack recorder etc.) for a couple of years back in the 90s).

2. I don't have any vinyls. I had a nice collection as a kid, but one day a water pipe leaked and destroyed the whole collection from one day to the other. I am planning though to get a vinyl player and then I'll buy some used vinyls, just for nostalgia.

Sean Trane wrote: MikeEnRegalia wrote: Commercial music CDs are not burned at all - they are pressed.   I think Mike just scored a point here, Olivier       Mike, Correct me if I'm wrong, but I have the distintctive impression you listen to your music mainly on your computer! do you ever play your cd in a Hi-Fi stereo?    I mean the ones where the witdth of the components are 45 cm?     Sorry if I assume wrong....

No, you're quite right. I'm currently listening to music exclusively on the computer, using an Creative X-Fi soundcard and a Logitech 5.1 speaker system which sounds amazing when considering that it only cost me 80 EUR. I'm aware of its limitations, but it's not at all "lo-fi" ... compared to my Hi-Fi system (Harman Kardon HK620 + Elac cabinets) it sounds really good, and in some aspects it's even superior ... that's simply due to the amazing progress in the area of cabinet material and acoustic optimization.

Actual Hi-Fi components may sound a whole lot better, but I do believe that an optimal sound quality is not all that important. I'd rather buy more albums than upgrade my gear!

MikeEnRegalia wrote: Commercial music CDs are not burned at all - they are pressed.

oliverstoned wrote: "Just like multi-speed cassette recording , the quality was pisspoor" Absolutely! Even music Cds are burned at high speed in factory, unfortunatly.

Commercial music CDs are not burned at all - they are pressed.

"Just like multi-speed cassette recording , the quality was pisspoor"



Absolutely!

Even music Cds are burned at high speed in factory, unfortunatly.

captainbeyond wrote: Hey Everyone, I'm guessing there have got to be more than a few gearheads out there in Prog Land. My questions are relatively straightforward: 1) How do you record from vinyl to CD? Output from my HiFi to my SB Audigy Platinum using SPDif. My PC runs the free program Wavepad, with the non-free "Golden Records" add-on to remove pops and clicks. The audio is recorded to raw *.WAV output, and I then use Wavepad to burn the CD directly - so no additional processing is done to the file except to convert it from WAV to CDA. I use a reasonably high-quality CD-Burner, not a cheap one, and always use high-quality CD-Rs. The sound quality is more than acceptable - although admittedly not perfect, as recording in 16-bit 44.1 khz mode always sounds muted compared to 24-bit 192khz mode - but then you can't always fit the music to a CD afterwards. 2) What set-up/equipment models do you use? As above! I won't use a "proper" Hi-Fi burner until they introduce a facility to remove pops and clicks, another to convert to audio formats other than straight CDA - and bring the price down in line with the PC equivalent units. I think the price of these units is disproportionately high given the "difference" in sound quality. 3) What do you think is the best "bang for your buck?" As above! Wavepad is free, and you can pick up a soundcard with SPDif - or, at a push, RCA connectors - pretty cheaply. Thanks ahead of time for your help. Cheers, AA

    

Edited by Certif1ed - August 10 2006 at 08:52