[Gllug] Re: Good quality audio cards

[Stephan Bourgeois]

>
>
>I'm looking to get a new sound card for recording vinyl LPs and singles 
>and plumbing the results into the house stereo - hopefully with a 
>digital audio feed.
>
I would look into an entry-range soundcard for *musicians* rather than a 
consumer PC product. I read that virtually all consumer PC soundcards 
are designed primarily for output (D/A), and that input (A/D) is 
generally of very poor quality. Terratec Phase 22 seems to be a good 
starting point (24bits / 192kHz analog + S/PDIF digital IO) around £88.
http://www.netzmarkt.de/thomann/thoiw2_artikel-166651.html

I presume that you have read about cables, and vinyl RIAA 
pre-amplifiers. Having worked in broadcast for 10+ years, my approach to 
HiFi marketing of cables is that entry-range £10 phono cables from 
Richer Sounds are worth their money. Anything more expensive than that 
is retail therapy or snake oil.

I also advise against using mains cable for speakers connection. Speaker 
signal is a low voltage / high current signal. To do a decent job, you 
would buy a fairly high rating mains cable. Similar rating speaker cable 
is cheaper and better, because speaker cable has only got 2 wires, mains 
cable has 3 (Live, Neutral, Ground). In the end you pay for the copper 
in the cable, including the ground wire in the mains cable that is left 
unused for speaker connections. I  recommend £1/metre Gale speaker cable.

As to RIAA pre-amplification is concerned, you can use the built-in 
pre-amp of a hifi amplifier. You can also buy a dedicated RIAA preamp 
like a NAD PP2 Phono Preamp (around £50).

I hope this helps. Please flame me on the "retail therapy" aspect of 
esoteric HiFi, speaker cables, etc.
Stephan.


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