Vinyl recordings - best methods

I was at Dave Garretson’s yesterday and was fortunate to hear some of his needle drops. To say I was impressed would be a vast understatement. I don’t think I have heard better quality from digitized vinyl. Now, besides the fact that Dave knows what he is doing, he also has top-notch gear at his disposal - excellent ’table, arms, carts, a great system, and the means to really clean his records. Plus, he doesn’t need a computer for the digitizing. I have been doing CD-R needle drops using my much more modest vinyl rig and a prosumer Marantz CD recorder. I like the results, bu they are nowhere near what Dave was getting with his DSD TASCAM machine.

I am one of the beta testers for the Sweetvinyl Sugarcube-2, a Linux based one-box turn-key solution for declicking, digitizing, adding metadata, and track splitting (all automatic, no computer editing needed). I started a thread here on the SC-2 where I will post my impressions once I take delivery (estimated to be some time in August). This device will provide digital files up to 24/192, so no DSD, but I am hoping it will both produce better-sounding files and be more convenient than my current setup.

@bondmanp

Thanks for visiting on Sunday for the demo. I’m taking another step with the Tascam DA-3000 by ordering an external Antelope Liveclock. The Liveclock will provide a 44.1 word clock to the Tascam as appropriate for DSD128 recording. The Antelope will also synchronize itself to the 10Mhz SRS PERF-10 Rubidium clock that I’m using with the Esoteric K-01X. Spec sheets suggest that this will increase clock accuracy to the ADC by an order of magnitude to .01ppm. I can also power the Liveclock at 12Vdc from the Hynes SR7. It’s a $1K gamble, but so far the experiment of recording vinyl with the Tascam has been worthwhile at every step.