LP or Cassette to CDR

[Gordon B]

I hope this works-- I just bought one (http://www.xitel.com/product_inport.htm)

[Chazro]

Wazzup G!

I've been recording lp's to cd for years without a problem. Here's a word to the wise though, as you may or may not know there's CDR's and CDRW's. CDR's allow you to record once, if you make a mistake your only options are to live with the mistake or throw the disc away. CDRW's allow you to record over pre-recorded material, just like a cassette, the only drawback is that they cost more than the CDR's. My advice is to buy a CDRW to play with, never finalize it (once finalized they can't be recorded over), and just use it to play with and familiarize yourself with how everything goes, then move on to CDR's. Watch your recording levels, if too high the distortions are much more audible than with cassette. I'm curious, did you pick up a Phillips recorder? If so, you're going to have some frustrating moments due to them being almost universally finicky. By finicky I mean they freeze for no reason in mid-recording SOME of the time with no predictable type of pattern. I had one and although I recorded many, many discs with the machine I don't mind telling ya that I threw away a shitload also. I've since bought a Pioneer Elite and it's NEVER failed in any way. Even though blank discs cost much less than a cassette how much value do you place on your time? I've been at the tail end of a 70+ minute compilation and have the damn machine freeze up. Very frustrating! But if you're a recording enthusiast (I recorded cassettes for over 25 years!) you should get the hang of it in no time.......Have fun!!!

[shrugs]

Great for recording those rare records that don't live up to the warm vinyl sound. Lots of Ogun sessions come to mind. But they are rare enough to pay for 50 cdrs.

[Chris D]

The portability makes recording to CD-R appealing.

My newish Tascam has an incredible Analog-to-digital filter, and the CD-Rs from LPs come out prettty well, warmer than commercial CDs of the same albums in some cases (like the Stones' Sticky Fingers).
Thing is, I DO miss some of the programming-automation of the crappy Philips.
The Tascam is totally manual, so one needs to concentrate full time to get clean edits, fades, etc.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

Gordon, while the price is right... how can you go wrong for 70 bucks, right? I am leery of this thing. Where are the specs? What kind of DAC do they use? Burr-Brown (now TI)? Any filtering? What type? Audiophile to me = noise shaping. Any non-linearity correction? Like I said, without any specs on their page, I'd be a little skeptical. You'll have to let us know what you think of the results.

I'm still in envy of Chris... man, I wish I had a Tascam, manual operation be damned!:)

BTW, truth be told, I never though my cheapie soundcard sounded all that bad when I used to input audio that way. Have you ever tried your sound card yet, Gordon? It would certainly be worth trying, especially if this new product comes with any kind of money-back-guarantee. Just run your headphone jack of your receiver to your line-in on your PC and try it.

Later,
Kevin

[Nathaniel Catchpole]

At least with older soundcards, there's a lot of electrical noise next to the inputs, this thing seems designed to bypass that. Used to be up on recording, but I'm 6-7 years out of date now, so they may well have sorted the soundcard inputs out.

[Gary Sisco]

Gordon -- You may run into one problem recording from vinyl: CD recorders, to get a good recording, require some sort of phono-stage in your amplification line, or you won't get a decent amplitude on your record signal. The signal from the turntable is of smaller amplitude than a typical CD, so you have to boost it up, some, unless you have a good amplifier with a good phono stage in it already. Other than that, the only problem I've had is having to stand there hitting the track-insertion button to separate the tracks.

Recording cassettes works fine (though again there's the track insertion issue). Indeed, that was the main reason I bought my piece-of-shit Philips burner, and it would also be the main reason I bought another burner someday, once they've had a couple of generations of improvement for home use, and the price comes down, as is always the case with electronic gear.

[shrugs]

who would own a turntable w/o having a phono stage?
Never know though because I have read about people woning a few hundred records and not owning a turntable because they couldn't make up their mind on which one to buy.

[Gary Sisco]

Shrugs -- I don't have that problem because my amp is so old (probably 30 years old or more at this point) that turntables were the major input when it was made. It already has a phono stage, therefore. My turntable's probably as old as the amp.

My guess is that Gordon has an amp of decent enough quality that it's already set up for a phonograph.

[Gordon B]

I forgot to re-visit this thread. I paid the $70 but I haven't gotten around to recording any lps yet. I'll do it soon and report back. My Musical Fidelity Nu Vista integrated amp has its own phono stage.

I just received the Mosaic Blackhawk sessions on heavy vinyl. I'll have to take a time-out from playing AMM bootleg cdrs to put Miles on.