(Dec 30, 2013, 14:54 pm)sidmal Wrote: BTW: is Rega RP1 PERFORMANCE PACK a good phonograph?
Congrats on picking a great vinyl rig! Rega makes good sounding equipment...I had a Rega Planar 3 before trading up to a Linn LP12 and loved it. The SOURCE is the most important component in ripping vinyl....
I'll just add a few things to consider from someone who has actually done it.
1: Most vinyl uploads on TPB are "torrent whored" from other sites. Certainly nothing wrong with that. We welcome the music but those uploaders would probably know very little of how to create a vinyl file.
2: Please list the equipment you use. Nothing worse than wasting time downloading a vinyl file that was created using a cheap turntable set up incorrectly.
2: Please consider 16/44 vs. 24/96 or higher. You can read for days about it, for example:
"Looking at this systematically, 24 bits gives you a rough picture of the dynamic range which give or take is theoretically 144db (you'll never get that due to other noise sources) , that is equivalent to the difference between the collisions of atoms and a Harrier Jump jet taking off in your living room. The actual achievable dynamic range of a pristine half-speed mastered virgin vinyl is no more than 80db but generally speaking about 75db.
What is the actual dynamic range of the music, well that depends but if it is 50db or above that is exceptional for modern music, some classical music has DRs into the 60s possibly 70s. So for most purposes the 75db you get from vinyl is more than enough. What extra do you get from 24 bits - mostly 8 bits of padding and wasted space. To date there really is no reliable evidence that at the point of delivery the extra 8 bits contributes anything while listening to music.
Sampling at 96Khz allows you to capture frequencies up to 48Khz - you cannot hear them or even frequencies well under half that value, if you have exceptional hearing you may just hear a 22Khz tone. How much musical energy is there above this point , normally relatively next to nothing , the highest fundamental on a piano is about 3500hz and harmonics have declining energy. Some instruments such as cymbals, Trumpet and the Balinese Gamelan do have high frequency content above say 30K but it is a long way down on the fundamentals. To date there is no credible evidence that this supersonic information is beneficial in music listening and in fact striving to recreate it can lead to IM distortion.
What can you put on an LP above 20K, well you can put some stuff there but gingerly and not much as you approach the label where tracking becomes notoriously difficult certainly even a 20k tone that can be rendered faultlessly at 0db on CD will be a challenge to reproduce on LP at a much lower level."
In the end, TRUST YOUR EARS. Listen to the same file at 16/44 and 24/96 and you be the judge.
Have fun!