Anyone Ripping LPs to CD?

[Macs!]

Are there any McIntosh owners here who record LPs to their computers, in order to create a CD?

What methods do you prefer - preamp output straight into the sound card? Via USB DAC ? Other techniques? Software preferences?

Any observed differences in the final sonic result when using a vintage SS or tube preamp, or a more modern Mac preamp or integrated amplifier?

[Jackmac]

Hi. I have done a few LP's to CD for some friends. I have a recording studio and use a phono preamp in an Arcam integrated and preamp out into my preamps on my recording console into a 24 track RADAR machine. The converters on the RADAR are some of the best available. It takes some time to do the whole procedure but it produced some good results. I have not used my C39's phono section yet for this process so I can't give a McIntosh comparison to the Arcam but I would guess it would sound better. Not sure if this helped but here it is.

[david10024]

I record LP's and SACD'S to my hard drive with a Lynx l22 pro sound card with excellent results. I occasionally then burn to a CD if I want to play the music in my car. Direct from the hard drive as a music server generally sounds clearly better than even a very good CD player but takes some effort to set up. I go into the sound card from the tape out in my c712.

If you only want to record the LP's at 16/44 resolution for burning to a CDr, the Magix Audio Cleaning Lab is the only program you will need. It is simple to use, will record, clean, and burn.

For higher resolution in a server environment I use Wavelab to do the recording at 24/96. You can also burn to a DVD-R at 24/96 and play the disk on a DVD player. There are a lot of programs that will fit the bill for more advanced high resolution efforts. Audacity is free. Some people like Sony Sound Forge, Cakewalk, or Samplitude. You might also want to look into Cubase SE3. I have never used these though.

As far as results, I find the quality very close to the original using the lynx at 24/96. On classical recordings I do some judicious DSP processing with SRS Audio Sandbox. This makes most sound clearly superior to the original. I still find that a certain analogue smoothness and weight is not quite captured though. Interestingly, with the DSP processing (Audio Sandbox) the over all spacial enhancement effect makes the processed file sound much closer to the sound of a live concert with very realistic hall ambiance. I think that analogue magic we love in an LP is probably an artifact. Without question, a digital copy of an LP will usually sound better than the commercially released CD.