Best Way To Archive Vinyl On My PC

Licorice.....please review....you do NOT need a sound card for your PC, as a matter of fact, it will be irrelevant with a USB DAC. As far as getting the Vinyl onto you computer, I highlighted 1 method via the Korg DSD recorder. This recorder is stupid good.....picture this is probably in alot of studios, certainly utilized by many live recording venues/bands. There is no better digital format than DSD, you can record it in 5.6mhz DSD and then convert it to whatever sample rate you desire.

A poster above recommended a NAD piece which indicates he has never done this and further does not understand what you are trying to accomplish. There is NO higher resolution method than DSD to digitally archive your vinyl. Period! Anyone who has heard my best vinyl recorded in DSD and then played back via my MacMini/Pure Music on my Playback Designs MPD-3 are blown away.

Good luck and please ignore those recommending MP3 turntables and $200 NAD phono stages/DACs and the like. They mean well but have simply not seen enough to know what they are talking about.

Licorice, I upgraded a DAK 2800-PC by replacing the capacitors. The program interface with the computer play list was perfect, and it's really easy to use. Korg sounds like you have to record it to Korg and then download it after. Maybe Ghasley could enlighten us both.

I'll "enlighten" as best I can. The solution I describe is merely 1 way to accomplish archiving your vinyl into a digital file(s).

Pretend the Korg is a tape deck. For those of us old enough to remember those days, you simply play your album and press record on the Korg. You may get up between each track to press a button to "mark" the gap between tracks if you choose to.( Me, i just record and add track marks later.) When side 1 is complete, you press pause, cue side 2 and press record again.....when side 2 is over you press stop. Ok, now we have a file that resides on the hard drive of the Korg. You may play it back in DSD from the Korg right then if you like OR you may move the data onto your computer. The Korg appears as a USB hard drive to your computer, so if you can move a file today you have it down already.

Now that it is on your computer, you open the supplied Audiogate software, add track markers at the appropriate times, name the tracks and then convert from the DSD to your desired format from 16/44, 24/96 and so on. Now you are ready to have itunes or your player of choice to import the files, which is a piece of cake.

The advantages of this method is you will have a DSD archive of the vinyl as played from your table, cartridge and phono stage. So if you like your phono stage, you will like the results. The downside of this method is your archived copy may be colored(by the fingerprint of your phono stage). Rob at Pure Music favors another method. In summary, he advocates feeding your table into a microphone preamp and then into a A to D converter and then into your computer.(unless you find a high quality A to D converter with usb, you will need to make sure your computer has an interface capable of capturing the data and from then on Pure Vinyl will apply the appropriate RIAA equalization. You will still have to enter track data....no way around that.) You will be recording "live" to your computer's storage through his Pure Vinyl software. You are limited to 24/192 and Pure Vinyl requires a Mac but I am sure the steps are similar on a PC with the appropriate software.

I can't tell you how the Pure Vinyl sounds, I suspect though that it sounds very good. I chose my route through the Korg because it is simpler (for those of us who used to "tape" our albums) and the Korg is optimized for recording from analog feeds, converting to digital and storing it on a hard drive. I also believe the Korg fully contained with only one real A to D step is likely to introduce less jitter, which we all have discovered to varying degrees is the biggest culprit to digital musical enjoyment.

Feel free to ask any questions you like, i will answer them all. I dont however consider myself an expert, I just believe this is the simplest high quality archival method. Does this allow you to remove pops & ticks like Pure Vinyl, no. Play your vinyl, then play your digital version and the results will be SCARY close. If you have some great albums, you will be shocked at how close your recording will sound to your vinyl....depending on the quality of your vinyl rig and the resolution of the rest of your system, you may find the comparison indistinguishable.

Orpheus10, i just googled "DAK 2800" and i got a hit, as I was completely unfamiliar with DAK. Please tell me what I uncovered by googling is NOT what you are recommending. What I found was a $69 (sixty nine) mixer capable of handling 2 turntables, RIAA equalization, a microphone and all software included to "convert your LP's to broadcast quality MP3's". Is this the same product to which you refer? If it is, I don't believe we are comparing apples to apples.....I'm sure you are enjoying your music however this will explain why your digital and analog sound so similar to one another. I'm just asking if I found the appropriate product you are touting to archive vinyl.

That's it. I replaced all of the caps with top of the line Nichicon. I don't use phono in. I have a very good phono. I use line out, and line in on the DAK 2800 PC. As a matter of fact just before I posted this, I was grooving on some "Grocer Washington Jr." on my play list that had been down-loaded using the modified DAK 2800; and it sounded so good that it has inspired me to began a thread on the music forum for "Grover Washington Jr."