best converter / playback for CD and vinyl

Advertise at AfterDawn.com

Link to us!

Private messages

Compose a private message

List of all updated threads

Threads without replies

Search messages

Friday 18.7.2025 / 06:41

Search AfterDawn Forums:

afterdawn.com > forums > digital audio > audio > best converter / playback for cd and vinyl

Browse by topic

Forums

Start a new thread

best converter / playback for CD and vinyl

Jump to:

Posted

Message

tiggerly

Suspended due to non-functional email address

21. August 2003 @ 04:40

Link to this message

I want to put all my CDs and vinyl LPs onto a PC that'll be used solely to playback music thus replace my hi-fi. Any views on the best software to convert vinyl / CD to PC, formats to convert to and software to play it all back? I obviously want to keep the converted material as close to original quality as possible, or in the case of vinyl recordings try to improve them.

[ + quote]

tigre

Moderator

21. August 2003 @ 05:12

Link to this message

Quote:
Any views on the best software to convert vinyl

Once the signal is converted to digital there shouldn't be quality differences. Any audio editor like Audacity (free) or Cool Edit Pro (now Adobe Audition) should do. Most important here is good hardware.

Quote:
the best software to convert ... CD

Exact Audio Copy (EAC). Best error detection/correction (-> scratched CDs ...). You'll find a good guide using the forum search or another one here: http://www.angelfire.com/magic/rex/tutorial.htm

Quote:
formats to convert to

Lossless compression (bit identical to original) with ~ 40% size reduction: FLAC or Monkey's Audio.
Best lossy format (quality-wise): Musepack (MPC). Indistinguishable from CD with good equipment & trained hearing at -standard setting (~160kbps) - for later transcoding e.g. to mp3 or Minidisc using -extreme or -insane setting could make sense (~190 / 220 kbps).

Quote:
in the case of vinyl recordings try to improve them

There's specialized software for this task but many alround audio editors like Cool Edit / Audition have similar features (noise reduction, Click/Pop removal, equalizer ...). If you have high quality hardware (soundcard or external d/a convertor) you probably want to record your vinyl at higher resolution (sampling rate/bit depth) than CD audio (44KHz/16bit), e.g. at 96/24. As this needs lots of space you might want to reduce resolution after "improving" them. If done properly, 48/16 should be good enough for your final files IMO - and is compressible as described above.

Quote:
software to play it all back?

Foobar2000 (http://foobar2000.hydrogenaudio.org) is the best (Windows) audio player quality wise (theoretically - probably you won't be able to hear a difference to other players like Winamp).
What player to choose probably depends on the features you want.

Lots of valuable information related to this you'll find here: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org

[ + quote]

tiggerly

Suspended due to non-functional email address

21. August 2003 @ 07:06

Link to this message

wow- thanks for that! Plenty for me to work with.

[ + quote]

Start a new thread

afterdawn.com > forums > digital audio > audio > best converter / playback for cd and vinyl


		User name	Password

		Not registered yet? Register here. Lost your password? Click here.