LP on CD

Posted by: Mike Cole on 18 October 2001

So has anybody recorded an LP onto a CD? If so, did it come close to what the LP sounded like?

Mike

Posted on: 18 October 2001 by max in hampshire

Hi Mike

Yes I have copied a good many. Rightly or wrongly I am giving up with LPs and preparing to have cd and tuner only system.

I use a Pioneer PDR -609. Very cheap 200GBP and very good.
As a recorder it has received rave reviews in UK but reviewers do not rate it that highly as a player. That does not matter to me as I do not want to use it as a player.
Currently I do not have a particularly up market music system but I cannot really distinguih between the original LP and the CD. Perhaps I will with my proposed Naim kit. But as things stand I rate it very highly and am totally satisfied with it.

Hope this helps.

Max

Posted on: 18 October 2001 by Phil Sparks

just for doing CD copies of my LPs for the CD-walkman. The sound is pretty average but it doesn't matter to me when I'm on the train, on the beach etc.

I didn't expect it to be great to be honest as the sound card was only a cheap and cheerful £25 job and is connected from my study to the hifi in the lounge by umpteen metres of cable. Also the insides of a PC can't be a very healthy place for small analogue signals.

One other thing is that I've got a suspicion that the PC is earthed and therefore by connecting the two I'm earthing my hifi in two places (a big naim no-no); my record player definitely sounds better when I disconnect the PC from the tape out on the amp.

If you're after decent quality from CDRs I'd guess that a separate stand-alone recorder would be the way to go.

Phil

Posted on: 18 October 2001 by Simon Matthews

To be honest I think a high quality cassette deck gives a cdr a good run for the money, especially when coming off an analogue source. Problem is nobody uses tape any more. So I now mostly use a pioneer pdr 509 ( I think the 609 has slightly better A to D conversion). CD's from vinyl are used in the walkman, car, copies to friends etc.

They sound ok when played back in the main system but would never encourage me to discard the vinyl originals.

Posted on: 18 October 2001 by jpk73

A) Copy the LP to a CD-Recorder, e.g. Pioneer 509, 609: sounds very good, easy to use...

B) If you want to edit the LP on your computer: first you have to convert the LP to digital; the digital signal has to be transferred to the computer via a SPDIF-interface, e.g. Egosys U2A. I do not recommend to use the analog-digital-converters of any soundcard! You should use an external analog-digital-converter, e.g. of your Pioneer 509/609 (or any MD, DAT...). If possible, use an optical connection between the analog-digital-converter and the SPDIF-interface, otherwise you could have an earthloop... You need a software for editing, premastering, burning etc, e.g. Samplitude 2496, and a CD-writer e.g. by Plextor or Yamaha. If you need to read CDs to your computers hard disk, you should use a CDROM by Plextor or Pioneer and a ripp-software like Exact Audio Copy, otherwise you will not get a perfect copy! Last: you shouldn't use cheap blank-CDs, I recommend Mitsui SG...

C) You can also use A) and then read the CD to your computer as described in B), in this case you don't need to buy a SPDIF-card...

Have fun! Jun

Posted on: 18 October 2001 by Martin Payne

I know someone who is going through this process at the moment.

He has found that he needs to use a good CD-R - a Tascam (semi-pro?) in his case.

He also found that there was a considerable degradation running through his pre-amp (not sure what he uses).

He found it much better to setup a temporary rig specifically for the job - LP into stageline/Supercap, directly into the CD-R.

cheers, Martin

Posted on: 19 October 2001 by Dev B

I use one of the first gen, CDR's and the quality is excellent. I use it pretty musch exclusively for LP transfers. I hadn't thought about using one of the spare Prefix/Hicap outputs direct into the CDR, but it is a good idea. I'll give it a go.

Dev B.

Martin - could you email me your number please. need to catch up? cheers.

Posted on: 19 October 2001 by Mike Cole

Thanks for the replies. I was thinking about getting a CD player for the car. I have a good cassette system but good blank cassettes are getting rare. The only one making metal (type IV) cassettes is TDK and I have to get those via mail order. I just didn't want the recordings to sound quite so CD like. I was hoping some of the LP qualities would come through. Unfortunately, this would be an all or nothing affair. I would need to buy a CD recorder and a CD deck for the car. In order to do that, I would have to sell my cassette player in the car and the one I record with.

Mike

Posted on: 19 October 2001 by Nic Peeling

I have a good quality turntable (Xerxes, Artemiz, Koetsu Red Signature). Records put onto CD and played back through top end Theta CD into 52 / 250 is astonishing. The CD recording sounds so like the turntable it is spooky. All the sweetness of the turntable is still there. The main difference is that the record has an image thrown back well behind the speakers, but the CD image is much closer to the plane of the loudspeakers. I took CD recordings to a friends system with Linn / Ekos / troika into 52 / 135s and played CD on CDX / XPS and you really got a comparison between the two turntables (personally much preferred the Xerxes).

Given the very high quality kit used this shows that CD recordings on a £200 CD recorder are truly amazing.

Nic P

Posted on: 19 October 2001 by Greg Beatty

...a friend converted our Disney LP of Alice in Wonderland onto CD. He used a technics turntable and a SCSI-based CDR drive. He said he saw stuff on the net that said that the SCSI drives had lower jitter and preserved the timing better.

Anyway, we compared the now Disney CD to a different performance of the same music - the made for TV version of Alice - that we have. The made-for-TV version is a recent recording and so has more slam, detail, clarity, etc. The CD of the record has all the scratchiness etc. of the LP - BUT we all preferred the Disney/CD. It was much more musical - we didn't want to stop listening to it. Very odd considering both are CD playback through the same CD player etc.

- GregB

Insert Witty Signature Line Here

Posted on: 19 October 2001 by Martin M

quote:
The CD recording sounds so like the turntable it is spooky.

So presumably (the presumtion being that a professional mastering chain is far 'better' than a 200 quid CD-recorder) a 'standard' CD produced by a compentant studio is a highly accurate copy of the master tape? And the LP by differing from the CD is just revealing its distortion?

Steps back from blue touch-paper....

Posted on: 20 October 2001 by Not For Me

Here's what I do, to get very good results.

1. Record each side of the LP from LP12 to Marantz CR630 Pro Studio CD recorder, on to a CDRW.

2. Read these digitally across to my PC using a modified cdfs.vxd driver that can read audio files as data.

Posted on: 20 October 2001 by Not For Me

Sorry, got cut off.

3. Segment tracks out, cure clicks and pops. remove run in noise, correct clipped peaks using Sound Forge.

4. Use CD Architect SF plug in to burn onto branded CDRs (TDK Reflex, Sony etc.)

5. Play CD in Walkman, Car, kitchen etc.

6. Enjoy

Plan B

Make a recording onto metal tape (Maxell Metal), no Dolby on a Nakamichi ZX7. Sounds good too!

Also enjoy

David