Recording vinyl to WAV file - pleasing results

[DevillEars]

After a year of non-use, yesterday I reconnected the Yamaha CDR-HD1300 to have another try at obtaining reasonable results in transcribing vinyl to WAV file format.

Previous efforts had been rather unimpressive and had led to the disconnection of the Yamaha unit from the main system and use purely of creating CD compilations for use in the car.

The last attempt at vinyl transcription had been done using an Ortofon Rondo Red MC cartridge and the digital copies had been lacking in tops and suffered from high levels of surface noise. In the interim, the Rondo Red had been replaced by a Kontrapunkt 'h' and I was curious as to the difference this would make to the end recording.

After reconnecting everything, I carefully cleaned the stylus and also cleaned the two LPs I had planned to use for this test ("Water Falls" by Sara K and "The Evening of my Best Day" by Rickie Lee Jones).

The Yamaha's analogue source recording process is quite simple and similar to that of a cassette deck - select "Analog' input, press 'Record', play source, adjust 'Record Level' until peaks just touch 0dB on the record level indicator, re-start source and press 'Play' on the Yamaha. Recording in this way creates the digital WAV file on the Yamaha's 120GB hard drive.

I had previously set the 'inter-track separator thresholds' (level and duration) and the Yamaha dutifully split the WAV file into tracks. At end of side, pressing 'Pause' adds a 'track-break' and temporarily suspends recording. Changing over the LP and re-cueing the tonearm and then pressing 'Play' resumes recording.

At the end of the two sides recorded, two spurious tracks had been inserted and these were edited out of the WAV file on the HDD using 'Track Edit' functions.

For playback, I have the Yamaha feeding an S/PDIF digital output into a spare input on a Theta DSPro Generation Va DAC using an Apogee Wyde Eye RCA-terminated digital interconnect (for those that may want to know).

Settling back with the original LP playing and the Yamaha also playing (not quite synchronised...) from its HDD via the Theta DAC, I was able to compare the vinyl original to digital copies (latest using Kontrapunkt and first attempt using Rondo Red).

Listening again to the Rondo-transcribed version reinforced the impressions of top-end attenuation and lots of clicks and pops.

Comparing (A:B) the Rondo and Kontrapunkt digital copies, it was immediately apparent that the top-end attenuation was greatly reduced, but just discernible and the surface noise virtually non-existent.

Finally, comparing Kontrapunkt digital copy to Kontrapunkt analogue live playback highlighted the superiority of original analogue vinyl playback over any transcribed digital copy playback but, for many, the digital copy would sound pretty damned good - particularly if they weren't aware of the fact that it was a digital copy taken from an LP.

Why do the test? Well there are a number of albums/tracks that I have on vinyl but do not have on CD but also want to have available for use in the car. The Kontrapunkt digital copies should be more than adequate for playback on a car stereo.

Happy Day!