USB Turntable choices

[Rick Graboski]

Hi all,
Happy to have found an analog forum. I saw an ad for a UBS turntable which can be used to easily convert Vinyl to music files on my hard drive. The brands I uncovered today are, Ion,Numark,Audio Technica, Project-Debut and Stanton. Prices range from $ 80. to $ 350.
Then the next choice is an ad for a non-usb TT attached to a preamp with separate software.

I am mildly computer literate and have a few boxes of Vinyl from decades ago that I would love to play on the road.

I want a good quality result and software that is user friendly. As you can see I am willing to do some research, but I am not going to open the box and solder stuff.

Has anyone invented this wheel yet?

Thanks,
Rick.

[noddin0ff]

For ~$40 you can get one of these http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/imic/ and use free software called Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) and this will let you plug an existing normal turntable into your computer and make quality recordings. Audacity, I believe, also has filters for removing pops and such if your records are less than pristine.

good luck!

[jrhymeammo]

Hi Rick,

Welcome to AR's analog forum. We only have a handful of vinyl members here, but alot of them can offer you some great advices.

Question I have for you is, what TT do you currently have? Just getting an external CD writer may work better for you, than toying with a noisy PC.

Go with quality instead of convenience...

JRA

[Rick Graboski]

Sorry for the late reply.
I pitched my compoments years ago, so I do not own a TT. However, I can borrow one from a friend this winter or I can purchase a TT of reasonable quality for this one time winter project. Then I would need the H/W to connect to the PC or ext. drive.
I also own an external Western Digital external drive for back up purposes.
What do you suggest?
Thanks,
Rick.

[royphil345]

I've heard the analog to digital conversion done by those inexpensive USB interfaces and the ones built into USB turntables isn't that great. If you have a halfway decent sound card, you should be able to get better results by plugging the turntable and preamp into the line-in jack on your sound card / computer. The USB interfaces can be helpful if your computer has really bad or noisy sound or your computer doesn't have a line-in jack (some laptops don't).

The best deal I know of on a lower-priced turntable is the Audio Technica. Very good quality for the price... http://www.amazon.com/Audio-Technica...2638277&sr=8-1 It has a built-in preamp, so you'd just need to plug it into the line-in jack on your computer or on a USB interface. You'd need a stereo 1/8" plug to dual RCA jack adapter to plug into a computer. http://cgi.ebay.com/3-5mm-1-8-Mini-P...QQcmdZViewItem If you prefer to use a USB interface, this one has RCA inputs and would eliminate the need for an adapter cable... http://www.zzounds.com/item--BEHUCA202

For recording software... Audacity is free and it works great for recording from your sound card or USB interface. It's a full-blown editor capable of removing clicks and pops, splitting album sides into CD tracks, etc... It can be tricky to get the hang of... http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ This is actually the same software included with many of the USB turntables.

CD Wave is a simplified program for recording and splitting album sides into CD tracks. It's extremely easy to learn and makes VERY quick work of splitting tracks. I love this program!!! http://www.milosoftware.com/cdwave/index.html Registration is on the honor system. The program is fully functional and will work forever, regardless of if you pay for it or not...

You could always spend more and get better quality... Project Debut turntable, Cambridge phono stage (http://decibelchicago.stores.yahoo.n...az64phpr.html), etc... If you're using a desktop, you could change the sound card to something music / recording oriented from M-Audio that would give you results on par with what you'd get using a stand-alone CD recorder and would improve the audio output from your computer as well.

[blake]

These vinal to CD thoughts are very helpful

Blake