Looking for a budget AD/DA convertor to rip vinyl and play back. Any recommendations?

[leesonic]

As the title says, I'm looking for a budget AD/DA convertor to rip vinyl and playback. Any recommendations?

Let me give you some background. My previous vinyl ripping experiences were all with a tower PC with an internal Soundblaster 16 Pro card in. This was a long while ago, when I ripped a whole bunch of my records. I have a tower PC now that has an onboard sound card, but I suspect it might not be the greatest, and who's to say the SB16 was any good in the first place?

Now, because both my systems are beside flat panel TVs, I think I can use a smaller caseless PC with the TV acting as the "monitor". I would probably need an external AD/DA convertor now though.

Any recommendations, say at the sub $500 price point? I see that SoundBlaster are still in this business, is their stuff still worth buying?

Lee.

 

[Jeff449]

Looks like the Parks Waxwing is right up your alley. I have zero experience with Parks products, but I bet others will chime in soon.

Parks Audio

Waxwing - the new standard for phono preamp performance - from Parks Audio.

parksaudiollc.com

 

[StimpyWan]

Behringer makes their UFO202 USB adapter. It has a built in phono preamp, as well as being an AD/DA convertor. It gets good reviews, though I've never personally used one. Available at Amazon, and well under budget...!

Amazon.com

 

[leesonic]

I should have mentioned, I don't really need a phono preamp. This thing would be attached just like a tape deck would, using the phono pre of whatever amplifier it was hooked to.

 

[lini]

Any recommendations, say at the sub $500 price point? I see that SoundBlaster are still in this business, is their stuff still worth buying?

If you want something, that works in combination with a computer, you'd best go for one of the 2 input/2 output channel prosumer USB audio interface models (e.g. Focusrite Scarlet 2i2 3rd gen., Tascam US-2x2HR, Topping E2x2 OTG...).

Whereas, if you'd prefer a standalone solution, you could consider a dedicated digital recorder, that works with flash memory cards (typically SD/microSD) and/or USB thumb drives, like for example the Denon DN-300R MkII.

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

 

[peterp1]

I've only ripped albums a couple times, but both times I used a high-quality digital audio recorder. A Sony PDM-D50 in one instance and a Zoom H2n in another. Both times the results were excellent, though you need to make sure you have the levels set properly in the digital recorder. If you have a quality digital audio recorder, that might be something to try.

 

[mcgjohn]

As the title says, I'm looking for a budget AD/DA convertor to rip vinyl and playback. Any recommendations?

Let me give you some background. My previous vinyl ripping experiences were all with a tower PC with an internal Soundblaster 16 Pro card in. This was a long while ago, when I ripped a whole bunch of my records. I have a tower PC now that has an onboard sound card, but I suspect it might not be the greatest, and who's to say the SB16 was any good in the first place?

Now, because both my systems are beside flat panel TVs, I think I can use a smaller caseless PC with the TV acting as the "monitor". I would probably need an external AD/DA convertor now though.

Any recommendations, say at the sub $500 price point? I see that SoundBlaster are still in this business, is their stuff still worth buying?

Lee.

you may want to consider stepping away from traditional consumer audio and computer audio and look more on the pro audio side where A to D and D to A are more commonly used.

For under 500 you can consider the Focusrite scarlett series which offer a lot for the money.

If your budget grows a more expensive option would be the Antelope Audio Pure2 A to D and D to A.

Both are external to a PC or laptop and connect via USB. The main drawback to PCIe cards is the A to D conversion is done inside a super noisy (EMI/EMF) environment while the external units usually have better isolation.

 

[leesonic]

If you want something, that works in combination with a computer, you'd best go for one of the 2 input/2 output channel prosumer USB audio interface models (e.g. Focusrite Scarlet 2i2 3rd gen., Tascam US-2x2HR, Topping E2x2 OTG...).

Whereas, if you'd prefer a standalone solution, you could consider a dedicated digital recorder, that works with flash memory cards (typically SD/microSD) and/or USB thumb drives, like for example the Denon DN-300R MkII.

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

you may want to consider stepping away from traditional consumer audio and computer audio and look more on the pro audio side where A to D and D to A are more commonly used.

For under 500 you can consider the Focusrite scarlett series which offer a lot for the money.

If your budget grows a more expensive option would be the Antelope Audio Pure2 A to D and D to A.

Both are external to a PC or laptop and connect via USB. The main drawback to PCIe cards is the A to D conversion is done inside a super noisy (EMI/EMF) environment while the external units usually have better isolation.

Seems like a lot of the pro audio ones have XLR connectors. I can probably make adaptors to use these, but would rather just use plain old RCA connections.

 

[howzat]

Behringer makes their UFO202 USB adapter. It has a built in phono preamp, as well as being an AD/DA convertor. It gets good reviews, though I've never personally used one. Available at Amazon, and well under budget...!

Amazon.com

I also have the Behringer UFO-202 (in silver - not -BK) from Sweetwater - no affiliation. It was, and still is way under $20. I connect it between my turntable and an iMac and use Audacity as the software. For closer to $500 I'm sure there are solutions closer to the original poster's requirements though.

 

[Apreggiator]

I also have the Behringer UFO-202 (in silver - not -BK) from Sweetwater - no affiliation. It was, and still is way under $20. I connect it between my turntable and an iMac and use Audacity as the software. For closer to $500 I'm sure there are solutions closer to the original poster's requirements though.

RME ADI-2 FS
500 Bucks won't cut it!

The Behringer will get you AD/DA though.

The SSL 2 MKII is a nice affordable pro-audio soundcard and AD/DA converter (200ish bucks iirc).

 

[lini]

I can probably make adaptors to use these, but would rather just use plain old RCA connections.

I'd rather suggest RCA <-> T(R)S cables. And in my view the big plus of those 2in/2out prosumer USB audio interfaces is, that you get a proper input gain/level control on the analogue side.

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

 

[gvl]

Unless you have records that are unavailable in digital, probably the easiest is to subscribe to a streaming service like Spotify and avoid the trouble and the clicks and pops.

 

[gvl]

Looks like the Parks Waxwing is right up your alley. I have zero experience with Parks products, but I bet others will chime in soon.

Parks Audio

Waxwing - the new standard for phono preamp performance - from Parks Audio.

parksaudiollc.com

Looking at the manual the only way to get digital out of this thing is through SPDIF, and somehow need to get that into the computer. It’s not impossible, but you will need extra hardware to do that, unless the computer has a SPDIF input, some sound cards do.

 

[onanysunday]

I highly recommend the Behringer UCA202 for this purpose. I've used it to record hundreds of records to my computer. You insert it into the signal chain after the RIAA equalization stage has been applied. It takes the analog signal and converts it to digital (via USB). Save to your computer's hard drive where you can upload the file through a separate software program that allows you to split each side of a record into multiple tracks, edit and name them, apply filtering (if needed) and even decide on which format and resolution you want to convert them to (digitally).

I used the Acoustica 'Spin It Again' software suite for this but that was many years ago and there are many other choices, but this software is dead simple to use and is very focused on vinyl/cassette and worked very well for me. You can also use it to adjust amplitude if you notice the waveform is either too small (quiet) or is clipping (too large/ distorting) which allows you to normalize volume levels across all recordings. I usually had to adjust the waveform a bit to get it as close to clipping as possible without ever clipping. This gives you an even volume level when listening to one recording off an album and then hearing a song off a different album. I then burned the tracks onto LightScribe CDs in .WAV format with custom art laser-etched onto the label side of the CDs.

* You can also buy USB turntables for this purpose but I found they are cheaply made. The Behringer allows you to use your best turntable for better fidelity and outcomes.

 

[Apreggiator]

I've had an UCA too and have a strong opinion about it, but do not want to be impolite.
Here are some measurements (of the very similar 222) and tech info:

Budget DAC Review and Measurements: Behringer UCA222

UCA222 is an extremely low cost DAC/ADC targeted at home recording consumers. For this review I measure its DAC and headphone output performance. This is an ultra low cost device retailing at just $30 with shipping included! As such, it is an "Amazon Choice" product...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[onanysunday]

I've had an UCA too and have a strong opinion about it, but do not want to be impolite.
Here are some measurements (of the very similar 222) and tech info:

Budget DAC Review and Measurements: Behringer UCA222

UCA222 is an extremely low cost DAC/ADC targeted at home recording consumers. For this review I measure its DAC and headphone output performance. This is an ultra low cost device retailing at just $30 with shipping included! As such, it is an "Amazon Choice" product...

www.audiosciencereview.com

To be fair, I did recap my UCA202 with higher quality Panasonic FC caps first (instead of the cheap Chinese caps they come with) and it sounded better than stock afterwards which was my purpose of doing it, but I can't say exactly how it changed in terms of measurements -just that I was very satisfied with it afterwards.

 

[Apreggiator]

To be fair, I did recap my UCA202 with higher quality Panasonic caps first (instead of the cheap Chinese caps they come with) and it sounded better than stock afterwards which was my purpose of doing it, but I can't say exactly how it changed in terms of measurements -just that I was very satisfied with it afterwards.

If I still had mine I'd have sent it over so you could compare!
My guess is 'significantly'.

 

[lini]

I've had an UCA too and have a strong opinion about it, but do not want to be impolite.
Here are some measurements (of the very similar 222) and tech info:

Hmmm.... Measurements say 24 bit / 48 kHz, but I thought the PCM2902 (and V2902) are 16 bit max.?

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

 

[Apreggiator]

Hmmm.... Measurements say 24 bit / 48 kHz, but I thought the PCM2902 (and V2902) are 16 bit max.?

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

Must be Ueli's (Behringer) witchcraft in action haha.
I don't remember but that would be odd indeed.
Oh well. I don't like like the UCA, that was my point. But I don't want to bring the tone down for those who do see merit in the thing, 'nuff said.

 

[lini]

(...) Oh well. I don't like like the UCA, that was my point. (...)

Was your exemplar one of the newer ones with that V2902? Just curious....

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini