Music from gramophone records can be played from a PC
A PC is more practical than a turntable with a record changer. Popular streaming services are even more practical and have a wide range of recordings, but too often they are made available in poor quality. Attractive music recordings can be downloaded from the Internet or ripped from CDs and analog discs to be stored with optimal quality at home on the Audiophile Music Server PC.
A PC is more practical than a turntable with a record changer. Popular streaming services are even more practical and have a wide range of recordings, but too often they are made available in poor quality. Attractive music recordings can be downloaded from the Internet or ripped from CDs and analog discs to be stored with optimal quality at home on the Audiophile Music Server PC.
Digital recordings from analog can be done with simple programs or advanced audio editors.
The German Dual offers 4 players at different prices and they are for every type of analog discs. The cheapest is the CS 418, which was presented in the note on November 18, 2021 with more information about the manufacturer's history.
However, it is worth investing a little more in a better tonearm in the CS 518. It doesn't hurt to remind you what function the tonearm has. There is a phono cartridge mounted in it and it is supposed to guide it precisely along the disc from the outer edge to the center. The cartridge decides what will be extracted from the disc. The turntables mentioned above have a belt drive. The third one has a direct drive, which makes it much more expensive. Such an investment is not as beneficial as a better insole.
A traditional phono preamp for Mowing Magnet cartridges is built into these 3 turntables, but can be turned off to use a better one, or for digital RIAA equalization.
With a modern turntable and the cartridge well seated in the groove of
the record, it can extract a lot of music to be stored on Audiophile Music Server PC.
The Danish Ortofon has a wide range of cartridges. With the Moving Magnet 2M you can easily change the stylus to 150 micron, 50 or 40 grooved records. The cartridge 2M Red offered with these 3 turntables has an elliptical r/R 8/18 µm diamond. The replacement for mono has a white frame and a Nude Spherica with R 18 µm, and for the 78 with a gray R 65 µm.
An even better stylus is Bronze with Nude Fine Line r/R 8/40 µm or Black with Nude Shibata r/R 6/50 µm. It should not be forgotten that the optimal pressure setting for 2M Red and substitutes is 18 mN, and for the more expensive 15 mN. This should be corrected with the available arm settings to ensure the smallest distortions for the digital recording.
The reference Dual turntable Primus Maximus has a Movig Coil cartridge Ortofon Quintet Bronze with Nude Fine Line r/R 8/40 μm. It is not optimal for older gramophone records. For them there is a very exclusive MC for mono with Nude Ortofon Replicant 100 r/R 5/100 µm. The turntable does not have a built-in amplifier for Moving Magnet and RIAA correction. The Ortofon has attractive transformers that will adjust the recording signal exceptionally well for digital RIAA equalization. The manufacturer says about the ST-7 transformer "A perfect interface between MC Quintet Series and tonearms". It is designed to be connected to a traditional phono preamplifier
Dual has also prepared an offer for simple ripping of vinyl records. They produced the Dual DT 500 USB which had an analog preamp for RIAA equalization and an analog to digital converter for the USB 1.1 output. The tonearm is based on the successful vertical pivot design used in more expensive models. A very simple AudioTechnica 3600 cartridge with a stylus with a spherical diamond was offered for this. There are also plenty of opportunities for the more ambitious.
- The built-in A/D converter did not work precisely and therefore it was possible to use an analog signal that was traditionally corrected according to the RIAA standard and then optimally digitally processed with the computing power of a PC.
- The cartridge could be replaced with a much better one, but it requires a lot of attention to its proper mounting, and this is not obvious when it comes to an offer for simple use.
- The signal generated by the cartridge was also available without amplification and RIAA correction to use a better one or for digital correction in PC.
- Switching off the preamplifier is also a possibility to mount the Moving Coil cartridge.
Dual recommends using the free AudaCity editor, which can be used with 38 languages and is available for Windows, MacOS, Linux, and other Unix-like operating systems. Playback equalization for 78 rpm shellacs and early 33⅓ LPs is the title of their page with extensive information about previous corrections of gramophone records.
Digital recording of music from analog discs does not make sense with modern devices with USB output, in which the tonearm usually has a cartridge called: piezoelectric, crystal, ceramic.
Such a cartridge used to be a good alternative to the steel needle in crank turntables.
It worked well in furniture with a tube radio, which had a built-in speaker, and a turntable was added, which already had an electric motor.
There are various offers for connecting a turntable wirelessly, which
can be used for copying to disk, but the quality of this is too limited
by the technical solutions available in them. RESTREAM YOUR OLD VINYLS is advertised in a video posted on Audio Pro's Link2 offer site.
With this legendary Swedish brand there is also a very simple Link 1 for € 150
Yamaha
has advanced systems, but the example of the NX-N500 speakers shows in
practice the limitations of wireless and even digital connection. DSD 5.6 MHz and PCM 384/32 are advertised, but the signal between devices is transmitted with lower quality.
Limitations in such offers due to transmission are even in the prestigious British KEF, which is covered in a separate entry about LS50 Wireless II.
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