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LP to CD transfer question...what's best?

I wanna make absolutely fantastic cd's of my lp's and i'm well on my way but need some pointers. My turntable, phono preamp & cabling are all good. I have an M-audio 2496 card in my computer and i even set my tower on a homemade maple platform with brass spikes to drain the 'puters bad vibes. When i listen to the tunes in my monitoring headphones the detail is all there but when i burn master cd's at 4x the detail just isn't there. Plus, i use Mapleshade records Mikro Smooth on all my blanks which makes a tremendous difference. I'm thinking about ditching the PC altogether and using a standalone burner. And i hear using an A/D converter is a plus...are these even made anymore? ebay didn't have one suitable. any help is greatly appreciated.
mattcecil
clio09
3,374 posts
 
I use a stand alone burner when I transfer lossless files from my computer to CD. I typically use HHB or Mitsui Gold blanks. As for LPs, I continue to play them, but I have a modified Alesis ML9600 that can take the analog signal from my phono stage, record it to the HD, then allow me to burn a CD. No computer involved. I tried this for someone who wanted to have some LPs transfered to CD and it worked fine. I thought the quality pretty good.
dminches
38 posts
 
You should definitely use an stand alone A/D. I use an ART DI/O which feeds the signal into my sound card. Generally, the A/D on the sound card is inferior to an external one.
stefanl
296 posts
 
Don't expect your CD burn to be as good as the L.P original.I also plug straight into the soundcard direct from the phono stage.Ultimately the bandwidth of CD can only be downsampling the more extended range of the L.P i.e a limit of 22.05Khz for CD as opposed to about 35Khz for the average commercial L.P.The best thing to do is to eliminate as many clicks and pops as possible by burning good quality L.P's.
buzzinghive
2 posts
 
I second DMinches views - an ART DI/O makes great copies when used as an a/d. Also you can dial in some tube warmth as required . Software is also a potential issue - I find Acon Digital's Acoustica to be good- cheap and supportive of 96khz recording.
Another potential route is to go USB in - there are some interesting posts at positive feedback in this regard. In short, going digital before the computer seems to be the way.
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