Time has come to digitize my Vinyl collection. Having successfully
copied tape material to CD, I thought this would be easy!

My equipment is a Denon DP-35F Turntable with a Denon DL-300
Cartridge, a New ART "USB Phono Plus" interface and a Dell Latitude
D810 Notebook equipped with RIP Vinyl.

This past weekend I copied three albums. The signal is clean but not
strong. I have the gain on the USB Phono turned to the max. But, the
meter in RIP barely rises about the quarter way mark. If I look at
the signal in Audacity it is pretty "thin". I could comfortably use
at least 3dB more.

Do you have any thoughts on what is "wrong"? And, what can I do about
it? You guys have given me great advice in the past.
Many thanks

Adrian

Adrian writes:

Time has come to digitize my Vinyl collection. Having successfully
copied tape material to CD, I thought this would be easy!

My equipment is a Denon DP-35F Turntable with a Denon DL-300
Cartridge, a New ART "USB Phono Plus" interface and a Dell Latitude
D810 Notebook equipped with RIP Vinyl.

That's a moving coil cartridge. They're generally lower output that
moving magnet cartridges.

If I had to guess, without doing too much research for you, I'd wager
that the USB PHono Plus was designed with MMC's in mind, and not the
small output MCC that you have.


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Adrian wrote:
Time has come to digitize my Vinyl collection. Having successfully
copied tape material to CD, I thought this would be easy!

My equipment is a Denon DP-35F Turntable with a Denon DL-300
Cartridge, a New ART "USB Phono Plus" interface and a Dell Latitude
D810 Notebook equipped with RIP Vinyl.

This past weekend I copied three albums. The signal is clean but not
strong. I have the gain on the USB Phono turned to the max. But, the
meter in RIP barely rises about the quarter way mark. If I look at
the signal in Audacity it is pretty "thin". I could comfortably use
at least 3dB more.

Do you have any thoughts on what is "wrong"? And, what can I do about
it? You guys have given me great advice in the past.
Many thanks

You need the transformer that (maybe) comes with your cartridge, or a phono
preamp with a specialised MC (Moving Coil) input. Your MC cartridge has a
very low output compared the the more usual MM (Moving Magnet) cartridges -
I doubt a USB phono interface would sport this.


geoff.

On Mon, 10 Dec 2007 12:47:33 -0800 (PST), Adrian
wrote:

Time has come to digitize my Vinyl collection. Having successfully
copied tape material to CD, I thought this would be easy!

My equipment is a Denon DP-35F Turntable with a Denon DL-300
Cartridge, a New ART "USB Phono Plus" interface and a Dell Latitude
D810 Notebook equipped with RIP Vinyl.

This past weekend I copied three albums. The signal is clean but not
strong. I have the gain on the USB Phono turned to the max. But, the
meter in RIP barely rises about the quarter way mark. If I look at
the signal in Audacity it is pretty "thin". I could comfortably use
at least 3dB more.


Do you still have the amplifier you used to use when you played vinyl
all the time? It will have an input stage better suited to your
low-output cartridge. Use that as a preamp, feeding Tape Out into
Line In on the ART, switching out the RIAA stage.

On 10 Dec, 20:47, Adrian wrote:
Time has come to digitize my Vinyl collection. Having successfully
copied tape material to CD, I thought this would be easy!

My equipment is a Denon DP-35F Turntable with a Denon DL-300
Cartridge, a New ART "USB Phono Plus" interface and a Dell Latitude
D810 Notebook equipped with RIP Vinyl.

This past weekend I copied three albums. The signal is clean but not
strong. I have the gain on the USB Phono turned to the max. But, the
meter in RIP barely rises about the quarter way mark. If I look at
the signal in Audacity it is pretty "thin". I could comfortably use
at least 3dB more.

Do you have any thoughts on what is "wrong"? And, what can I do about
it? You guys have given me great advice in the past.
Many thanks

Adrian

If, as you say, the signal is clean, then as long as you have it
digitised there is no problem. Before saving it to any 'lossy'
compression method, simply amplify it in Audacity. This is a
mathematical operation, and the 'clean signal' will be end up being as
loud as you want it to be.

Jack.

Dave W. wrote:

If, as you say, the signal is clean, then as long as you have it
digitised there is no problem. Before saving it to any 'lossy'
compression method, simply amplify it in Audacity. This is a
mathematical operation, and the 'clean signal' will be end up being as
loud as you want it to be.


However as you amplify it, yo will also bring up the quantisation noise. It
is best to optimise your recording level first.

The effect can be reduced by ensuring you are recording at 24 bits
resolution.

geoff

On Tue, 11 Dec 2007 11:30:45 +1300, "geoff"
wrote:

However as you amplify it, yo will also bring up the quantisation noise. It
is best to optimise your recording level first.

The effect can be reduced by ensuring you are recording at 24 bits
resolution.

Waste of space really, off vinyl. Or off any other real-world source
where levels are under control.

"Laurence Payne" NOSPAMlpayne1ATdsl.pipex.com wrote in message
...
On Tue, 11 Dec 2007 11:30:45 +1300, "geoff"
wrote:

However as you amplify it, yo will also bring up the quantisation noise.
It
is best to optimise your recording level first.

The effect can be reduced by ensuring you are recording at 24 bits
resolution.

Waste of space really, off vinyl. Or off any other real-world source
where levels are under control.

I agree. The background noise on the vinyl will dither the quantisation
quite effectively. Whilst ideally one would record with the peak signal just
failing to hit 0dBFS, in practice even with a 16 bit ADC when digitising
vinyl anything up to around 12dB of gain could be retrospectively applied to
the digital signal without audible quantisation noise becoming apparent.

David.

"geoff" wrote in message


Dave W. wrote:

If, as you say, the signal is clean, then as long as you
have it digitised there is no problem.

But what is digitized? Is it really a pure signal, or is there a noise floor
that can intrude on the faint signal coming into the RIAA preamp? A MC
preamp or transformer raises the signal above the noise floor of the MM
preamp. Since there is currently no MC preamp or transformer, the noise
floor of the MM preamp is probably the weakest link.

Before saving it
to any 'lossy' compression method, simply amplify it in
Audacity. This is a mathematical operation, and the
'clean signal' will be end up being as loud as you want
it to be.

Problem here is that there's always an analog domain noise floor, if only in
the existing analog-to-digital converter. In this case I expect that the MM
RIAA preamp is the weakest link. I base this on many experiences with them.
Even with 16 bit converters, a MM RIAA preamp is the weakest link.

Let me give a real world numerical example. If I adjust a good MM RIAA
preamp so that the preamp clips at a slightly higher level than a
high-trackability cartridge mistracks on a test record, the needle-up noise
floor will be 70+/- dB down. Since the noise floor of a good 16 bit
converter is more like 96 dB down, the weakest link is the MM RIAA preamp.

However as you amplify it, yo will also bring up the
quantisation noise. It is best to optimise your recording
level first.

Agreed. And that's why there are such things as MC pre-preamps and
transformers.

The effect can be reduced by ensuring you are recording
at 24 bits resolution.

A 24 bit converter does no more good - it just gives a higher resolution
rendition of the noise in the MM RIAA preamp.

"Dave W." wrote ...
Adrian wrote:
This past weekend I copied three albums. The signal is
clean but not strong. I have the gain on the USB Phono
turned to the max.

If, as you say, the signal is clean, then as long as you have
it digitised there is no problem.

Lets review the bidding....

* Low-output MC cartridge feeding an inexpensive RIAA
phono preamp designed for MC.
* Gain on the preamp "turned to the max".
* Signal is "clean but not strong"

Therefore, by definition, the captured signal is NOT
"clean" after amplifying it (plus the noise) to the
nominal level.

Of course, Adrian could decide that it is good enough
for his purposes, and that is fine. But conventional
wisdom would suggest that the solution might be...
1) Use a conventional MM cartridge
2) Use a step-up transformer or pre-pre-amp for MC
3) Use a preamp designed for MC.