"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
"Keith G" wrote in message


Guilty about the ludicrous number of gardening mags she consumes, Swim
bought me a couple of hifi comix yesterday (I'm actually so 'off
them', these days!) and in one of them I saw a mention that
attenuation of signals for computer recording purposes should be done
'pre-computer' because the software 'volume sliders' wreck the sound
quality.....???

Oh, boy.

Anyone care to confirm or deny this and would this mean it is best to
leave the sliders 'maxxed out' if one is attenuating 'pre computer'?

Keith I know you didn't say this,


It's in the August 2004 editions of either HFW or HFN - I haven't been able
to find it again yet. But there is a huge article in HFW (pp 76 - 81) that
opens up a whole new can of worms for me on the subject of LP HD. See this
strapline for an idea.....

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/keit...w/L1040425.JPG

.....so I've got a lot of catching up to do. (The extra resolution and
bandwidth of 24/96 sounds appealing and I think I'm about to revise my
thinking as a result of this bit of propaganda.....!!!)


snipped but studied - 'frisky musos'??? :-)

As I recall, you're using a consumer sound card. If you got your hands on
one that was designed for audio production, you might find things a little
different. Consumer audio interfaces clip someplace around 1 volt. Audio
interfaces designed for the audio production environment clip someplace
between 1.7 and 8 volts.


Actually I'm using only the computer's motherboard sound atm. I'm trusting
that the 'digital bits' are not being dinged up too much in the (possibly
naive and receding) idea that 'a bit is a bit'.....

My use of digital audio has changed somewhat lately - having assembled a
decent little 'computer audio' (ss amp and speakers) for 'background music',
I no longer play music straight from the hard disk and therefore ditched the
cheapo soundacard which was OK to get a digital signal to an outboard DAC,
but played merry hell with any attempts to record vinyl to HD.

As an example, I have uploaded this track.....

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/keit...ould%20Fly.mp3

....(actually a CD rip, selected only for its modest filesize) of the sort of
thing which sounds perfectly OK from the computer setup but, even though it
is only a 128MP3 (I'm recording at better bitrates these days) it sounds
really quite fine when burned to CDR/RW as an audio CD and played over my
audio setup proper.



So I'm plotting to
construct a little attenuator which I envisage as not much more than
an Alps pot in a little box with phono sockets IN and OUT, wired
accordingly.

Go for it. However, bear in mind that some consumer sound cards really
need
to be operating just below clipping to deliver adequate dynamic range.


My instinct would actually be to pull back from 'max' a tad, I have to
say......