OT Vinyl to MP3

From: Jason McBrien <jbmcb_at_hotmail.com>
Date: Fri Feb 22 02:53:51 2002

----- Original Message -----
From: "Loboyko Steve" <sloboyko_at_yahoo.com>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Friday, February 22, 2002 12:11 AM
Subject: Re: OT Vinyl to MP3

<snippy snip>
> My memory is a
> little foggy here, but records are cut with a funny
> frequency response to compensate for the medium
> itself, which an RIAA pre-amp compensates for while
> amplifying the signal.

It's called the RIAA curve. Rather tricky, it cuts the low end and
exagerates the high end cause the record groove would get too wide for
unequalized bass reproduction and not wide enough for high frequency
reproduction. The curve is applied at mastering time and the phono preamp
just applies the opposite.

> NOTE: you MAY be able to do the RIAA equalization in
> software, and MAYBE a MAC has a pre-amp built in.

It has a microphone preamp for plaintalk microphones, but not nearly enough
for phono step-up. RIAA in software would be possible but difficult. It
would be pretty tricky to get the levels just right on the preamp. Rat Shack
here in the states makes a fairly decent 9V battery powered phono preamp for
about $25. Mail order only. I've heard about it in various vinyl-head forums
and they say it's not bad at all. Somone opened it up and said it had one IC
and a couple of transistors/resistors, that's it :)


> Unless you have a truly outstanding turntable, a great
> cartridge and needle, and absolutely virgin (and
> darned good quality to begin with) albums, you will
> WANT to clean up the sound.

Far easier to get an Allsop Orbitrac record cleaner and clean up the record
first. I went whole hog and picked up a VPI 16.5 automatic record cleaning
machine. A bit pricey but my vinyl sounds like new, and it's cheaper than a
whole new record collection :)

<snip>

> I think for the time you will put in, you would be
> best off making a true CD of your efforts, and then
> MP3'ing that. Costs a quarter extra these days. VBR
> (variable bit rate?) type MP3's are very, very good;
> these days with cheap storage, silicon and otherwise,
> I don't see any reasons to use less than 192Kbps
> straight which, to my ear, is just fine for all except
> the most critical recordings. Unfortunately, when I
> made or obtained most of mine, the software I had
> could do only 128kbps, which makes even some rock
> music sound bad, particularly cymbals, snares, etc.

128kbps is usually pretty bad. LAME is by far the best encoder of them all.
Some guy did a crazy, in-depth test of all the encoders about a year ago and
LAME blew them all away. I use 160kbps VBR capped to192kbps using standard
stereo (NOT joint-stereo!) and can fit 9-10 CD's on one MP3-CD, and it
sounds fine in my car.

Retrocomputing Insert:
I keep my record collection indexed on a Macintosh SE/30, with a Filemaker
Pro database frontend feeding off a PostgreSQL backend running on a
SPARCStation 10 running Linux :)
Received on Fri Feb 22 2002 - 02:53:51 GMT