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Depends on how serious you are

Posted by Charles Hansen (M) on October 15, 2017 at 07:10:59

In Reply to: Digitising Vinyl posted by PAR on October 14, 2017 at 16:54:56:

When digitizing an analog signal, one is faced with the exact same problems when converting from digital to analog - just in reverse order. If one just wants to have background music available and save the actual LPs for critical listening sessions, almost anything will do the job.

However if one is truly wanting to convert the LPs to the same quality level that direct playback is capable of, that means that one needs to *at least* use the cartridge, turntable, and phono preamp used for critical listening, to create a signal worth digitizing. Then trying to find an ADC that has analog circuitry equal or better than that in the phono preamp becomes extremely difficult indeed.

Just to give you an idea of how critical this is, back in the late '90s HDCD was considered to sound markedly better than "regular" CDs. None of the sound quality improvement had anything whatsoever to do with the HDCD process - instead it was because the then-ubiquitous Sony ADC was replaced by an audiophile-grade ADC designed by Keith Johnson. It sold for $20,000 and is still used by many of the top mastering engineers in the world.

Here is a link to the real story of HDCD:

https://www.audioasylum.com/audio/digital/messages/18/184385.html

Finding a used one of those would be one choice. Another would be the (now discontinued) Ayre QA-9, which was roughly 1/4 of that price. Not only did it provide fully-balanced, all-discrete, direct-coupled, zero-feedback analog circuitry, but the double- and quad-sample rates incorporated a special digital filter that followed the cues of DSD and exhibited zero of what MQA calls "time blur" - zero overshoot, undershoot, or ringing. Below is a link to the Stereophile review.

Normally this kind of self-promotion should be (rightfully) banned, but the demand for a high-quality ADC was much lower than expected and the product has been discontinued for some years now. Ayre will receive zero financial benefit if you purchase either a used Pacific Microsonics ADC or a used Ayre ADC. I know of no others that will produce the quality of result of those two. One possible exception would be a Prism - I know that there was a "shoot-out" of sorts at Abbey Road when they re-mastered all of The Beatles albums back in 2009, and the Prism was the unit selected. At that time the Ayre did not exist, and I don't know if they listened to the Pacific Microsonics as it had been discontinued for at least 5 years at that time.

The biggest problem with most digital equipment is that it is designed by digital audio engineers. They are so enamored by the mathematical beauty of digital theory that almost all are "objectivists" and believe that measurements tell the entire story about sound quality. That is why so many DACs are built with op-amps and high-feedback analog circuits that yield amazing specs (eg, 0.0001% distortion) but don't sound much like real music. Here is a link to a post where I describe what I have found to be the critical factors in achieving good digital sound, and it applies equally to both D/A and A/D:

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/35106-how-does-a-perfect-dac-analog-signal-look-different-than-a-cheap-dac/?page=7&tab=comments#comment-713189

As others have pointed out, by far the best software to use is Vinyl Studio. It is very low cost, extremely easy to use, and yields exceptional results.

Hope this helps,
Charles Hansen

• Stereophile review of A/D converter   (Open in New Window)

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