A Question of Quality
Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: analog, digital, conversion, cassette | Themes: Digital Entertainment
6. A Question of Quality
At first, I was confused at the results I was hearing out of EZ Vinyl Converter once I straightened out all of the microphone settings. The material I’d dumped into iTunes from EZ Vinyl Converter at 16-bit/44.1 kHz as a 160 Kb/s MP3 file sounded markedly better than the raw audio captures I had running in Audacity captured at 32-bit/96 kHz. Then I realized that I was playing through iTunes with the custom EQ settings I always leave running by default. These settings give a little lift to the mid-range while adding plenty of extra oomph into the bass and treble ranges. In effect, I was unintentionally using iTunes’s EQ to artificially “improve” the audio file.
Having saved my raw Audacity recording as a project file, I went into Audacity’s Edit > Preferences area and pointed the program at the LAME encoder I already had installed on my system. If you’re new to this business, LAME is a ubiquitous and free MP3 encoder. Many recorder/editor programs, including Audacity, don’t include encoding engines of their own. You have to have one already on your system, and when your application needs it, you’ve told it where to look on your system for the proper file(s). Once I linked Audacity to my LAME encoder and selected 320 Kb/s from the Preferences MP3 pull-down menu, I was able to create a top-quality MP3 from the raw file. I then imported this into iTunes and compared the results side-by-side.
The amateur audiophile in me cringes to say this, but here’s the truth: I did this comparison with very good speakers (Logitech Z-5500) and headphones (Monster Beats by Dr. Dre), and the two files are very close in quality. I had to listen two or three times to really settle in my mind on what the differences were. First, the 160 Kb/s file tends to overemphasize the high ranges. The “brightness” of the song, already stronger than what I’m used to because of the analog source material, seemed even brighter. Meanwhile, the richness of the mids and bass receded a bit. Now, if you’re listening on a cheap pair of earbuds, you might not notice any of this, because you can’t hear squat for bass on a pair of $5 buds–you might as well use beer cans for speakers. But on good playback hardware, you’ll find that instruments such as the saxophone sound more filtered and distant, as if the player were in the back of the band rather than right in your face. At 320 Kb/s, audio sounds richer and more vibrant. It’s a matter of degree and quality, not whether you can or can’t hear something.
Not least of all comes the key question for all of us who have replaced our LPs with CDs and now have both formats: does a 320 Kb/s MP3 rip from LP sound better than one made from a CD? Here’s my wishy-washy answer: the LP is going to give you a little better fidelity and a lot more noise. If you’re okay with the noise, then go for it. I’ll only say that I’d wager you want the MP3 format in order to be able to play the music outside your home, and if this is the case, are the speakers you’re using really able to show the slight quality improvement in an LP rip?
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This seems so complicated, especially because of Windows 7 and the choice of products used.
You can look on Amazon for a regular turntable (they start from 50$) and you just have to look at the spec sheet at the producer to see if they have "Line out" or un-amplified output. For example, the first result on Amazon, Audio Tehnica AT-PL50 at about $70, has "integral, switchable stereo phono pre-amplifier. Permits use of
turntable with stereo amplifiers having either magnetic-phono
inputs or “AUX” (high-level) inputs; also allows convenient
use of turntable with most powered speakers" - as says in the manual.
So you can just get a 50 cent audio cable, plug the RCA outputs to the "Line In" of your soundcard and record the tracks using whatever you want, for example Goldwave or Adobe's Audition (former known as Cool Edit Pro). And, if you want quality, just get Windows XP and use up to 24bit, 96khz but you should stick to 48khz, 16 bit, because this way it's the easiest to convert to MP3 or OGG or FLAC.
An USB turntable will not give better quality, as it will take the analog signal and just digitize it, then Windows will convert it back to analogic signal so that applications see the USB as a microphone. It's just poinless conversions.
Oh shucks, I was counting on getting to the video today. My fiancee (who's not a computer nerd like some) bought herself a VCR/DVD recorder combo machine to backup old family videos. My though was to use a regular VCR, and the video-in on a quality TV tuner card, but then I'd have to find good video recording software (bundled software is never good), worry about encoding the file at a proper rate (sometimes, even if the movie is less than 2 hours, my DVD software can't compress it to fit on a DVD), etc.. etc...
I look forward to seeing the solution the author came up with, see if I can take any pointers from it, assuming its not "Use the Media Center capabilities of Win 7/Vista", cause that's not what I want to hear.
This seems so complicated, especially because of Windows 7 and the choice of products used.
The settings I dealt with in Windows 7 are largely present in prior versions, and I felt it was important to work on the platform many people would be using in the weeks and months to come in case there were any unforeseen surprises. Also, I opted for the USB-based turntable for its universality. Sure, you can probably buy a better RCA-only turntable for less money, but not everyone has Line In capabilities on their PCs -- and the number is getting steadily lower as notebook dominance continues. On the other hand, *everyone* has USB. By the time you get to the end of this article, you should have a decent enough idea about the ins and outs of this process that optimizing for any type of analog player or input should be no trouble. I love quality and agree with everything you're saying, but I felt convenience and universality was even more important in this case.
Oh shucks, I was counting on getting to the video today. . . . I look forward to seeing the solution the author came up with, see if I can take any pointers from it, assuming its not "Use the Media Center capabilities of Win 7/Vista", cause that's not what I want to hear.
Should I give away a spoiler? OK, yes, I'm going to be working with the tools already built into Windows, but I also have Pinnacle Studio 12 and Adobe Premiere Elements 7 on deck. Are you sure you want to dismiss Windows out of hand? Are you *positive* that it can't give you satisfactory or equivalent results to fee-based options? In a few days, I guess we'll find out. ;-)
Nice article. now i have some tools to convert some of my old cassettes.
hopefully theres no 64-bit annoyances with these programs.
Nice article. now i have some tools to convert some of my old cassettes.hopefully theres no 64-bit annoyances with these programs.
I was running on Windows 7 64-bit and had no trouble with anything I tried.
Until I read this article I forgot all about my Technique SL1200 turntable and the vinyl's I still have. Just might have a project for this weekend.
I seriously LOLed when I saw page 2... That's the exact model video-camera I picked out for my dad when I was in highschool XD
We still have a bunch of the hi-8 and basic 8's from our old old sony which bit the dust... I tried playing them in that camcorder but unfortunately it won't play. I'll be waiting for the next segment. I want to see different approaches/hurdles to be overcome
not everyone has Line In capabilities on their PCs
Not sure what stuff you're smoking there, but I have yet to meet with a notebook/netbook/desktop that didn't have a line-in or mic jack. Every computer has one, since audio is now a requirement on PC's.
I've been converting analog audio to digital for more than 10 years, using Cool Edit Pro as my preferred software, and a good 3.5mm audio cable. It's the only software I use and the only software I need, as everything else I've tried is a crying joke. Everything from noise-reduction, hiss/pop removal, normalizing, hard-limiting, dynamic range expansion, parametric EQ, gap removal, down to bit-for-bit cut/paste wave file editing I've done - and I can load and save WAV, MP3 and WMA files in any bitrate/sampling frequency I desire. Best software purchase I ever made, and it only cost me $25.
For vinyl rips I still use my turntable/amplifier and get standard RCA out. As for cassettes, I have a soft-touch full-logic dual tape deck that I use to play back my mountain of type IV tapes, all recorded with Dolby C and S NR. They sound damn close to anything even my hyped DAT recorder could do back in the day for sure.
As for itunes rips, I just use the stereo mixer as my line-in source - play back on itunes and record with CEP. It's the easiest way to un-DRM your music, and a great way to record streaming audio from sites like Pandora. (Free music anyone?) You can even connect computers together to record from one to the other, like you would in the old days with two tape decks.
back in the day, when you had an excellent record player, LP sounded better than cd's (mainly due the lack of anto-aliasing filter)...
THEREFORE, converting LP use the POS ion turntable is an exercise to futility because of the crappy needle etc on that turntable.
or put another way search for the artist online if it's available it will sound better. than what you can do.
I have an Ion Tape2PC unit which gives me the option of USB output or standard RCA output. Based on the comments about USB converting several times, would I be better off just using the RCA outputs and plugging those into my Line-in on my soundcard? The USB connection has worked well enough for these cassette tapes (they're mainly just people talking, no music), but any improvement in quality would be welcome.
Just a brief note to follow on my page 2 comments about not wanting to buy a Hi8 camera for just one use. At the time, I found a couple possibilities selling for about $80 locally on Craigslist. When I finally found a camera repair shop across town willing to rent one for $20/day, I thought I'd found the best possible solution. However, the first unit I rented turned out to be defective. By the time I got the replacement, my schedule had shifted, and it took me twice as long as anticipated to get through all of the various encodings and tests needed for the follow-up article on video encoding. By the time I could finish with the camera and get someone across town to return it, I'd had it for a week. The owner gave me a "break" on the rental, knocking my bill down to $100. Had I just bought the Craigslist option for $80, I could have taken as long as I wanted, then resold it, maybe even for $50. Clearly, buy and resell would have been a smarter approach than rental. Lesson learned.
As far as audiophileness goes, you're using the wrong equipment. I can see you plugged a usb turntable into you're system (or through you integrated card), used windows mixer to get the samples and recorded everything that way. That's probably why you con't hear much difference between an mp3 and a flac file. I suggest you get a decent turntable (like a $1.000 up), a good audio card that supports ASIO (I've got an M-Audio Audiophile 192) and record Line in from the tt to audacity through ASIO, one at 16/44,1 (cd quality) and another at 24/96 (sacd quality). You could also get a sample at 16/48 (dvd-a) and 24/192 (max fidelity); but be sure to take them all separetly, 'cause converting a sample to an inferior bitrate/frequency (downsampling) degrades quality beyond conversion if the new bit/freq aren't factors of the old one (ex: 24/96 -> 24/48 is ok, 24/96 -> 16/44,1 degrades the sample beyond the obvious of changing the bit/freq values). Then do a test, using foobar and ASIO (not those winamp BS decoders and windows mixer, which downsamples everything it gets anyway).
Regards!
The actual digital stream itself is based on a format that is inherently lossy. You're simply restoring a lossy file, even if the restoration is 99.9% accurate.
For audio I prefer analogue any day. The only compromise I make is to digitise my LP's in 24/96 quality.
Due to the nature of the digital stream the soundstage often changes as a result, too. For example, play the Genesis track 'Tonight, Tonight' on an LP, then compare play it on CD - the latter sounds hard, and compressed, because that's what it is. After a while it also becomes fatiguing.
So I know it's being a stick in the mud, but I have seen little to convince me that digital is always better..for synthesised sounds yes perhaps..but an expensive CD player on a transistor amp is only scratching the surface in terms of quality when it comes to an LP on the same rig. Hook the LP upto a valve per-amp and it could quite possibly blow your ears away even compared to a good CD player/DAC combo. For electronic music it works OK, but for analogue transfers..nah, I'll pass.
The marketing men will sell digital because it makes them money. The rest will experiment, using the correct hardware (including decent record decks, amplifiers and leads), and I have never seen anyone that wasn't impressed by it. I like the convenience of digital, not the quality, not at this stage.
If you don't like the space your LP collection is consuming, record them onto VHS tape. The audio bandwidth of VHS is great and you can insert index points to locate your tracks.
Caution:Never hook your LP player straight into your recording device, unless it has the correct phono stage. Failure to do this can result in damage to your hardware. If your amp has a phono input, plug the LP player into it first, then hook some decent leads from the amp into the video recorder. Also beware of creating feedback loops, that can damage your amplifier.
Sorry for the multiple posts.
I have also found that muting the unused inputs on my sound cards lowers the hiss levels when recording through the primary aux input, although that might be unique to my system. It's got a good Creative card, but it gets some hiss and feedback from those other inputs. It also (like most cards), saturates the aux input very easily, so unless I keep it real low it's a waste of time.
Also, can't emphasise this enough..get some decent leads. The one's that come from the shops are mostly junk that isn't designed for quality. If the device you're recording from is old, clean the outputs with a suitable cleaning solution.