Hi
I posted this today in a Hawthorn forum but feel Audiocircles much more my home base" forum. So i post it here too.
I don't know if this is "good behaviour' in forum land?
I want to share my "ultimate" approach.
I consider myself to have a very transparent tube system based on a modded DEQX Australian fully digital preamp with build in 3 way active crossovers, and modded Jadis tube amps for mid and high in an still developing OB based system with Gr-Research servo woofers. ( not yet tried out Hawthorne drivers)
So i want my cherished LPs out of convenience point of view to be digitized as pure as possible. I dont trust my PC to feed the probably crappy clock in my audiocard so i was seeking for a high-endisch AD converter as a stand alone and feed the digital data into my PC . I want all my LPs to be on the hdd in .flac format as a source for my Wayne modded SB3 with pws (3V and 5V) from Paul Hynes.
I have a Well tempered turntable and will buy a new MM probably the Zu-DL103. to retip my old Spectral Reference will be probably mor expensive than the Zu.
I have a tube VTL MM phono preamp ( very quiet with NOS 12ax7 from Mullard or Telefunken) But now my search which AD converter?
I quickly found out HUGE price differences. normally AD is studio stuff or for home recordists. mostly ppl use microphones as input and the AD is called "audio interface". Most audio interface have an inboard DAC as well and room for 4 or 8 analogue ( mic) inputs or more. Many studio recording features too complex for me to dive into for my simple wish to only digitize my Lps.
I skipped dedicated "studio"reference PC audio cards like Lynx L22
http://www.lynxstudio.com/product_detail.asp?i=11 it is US $ 700+ pci card with a better clock than normal and much more a high end unit than M-Audio cards which are also half the price of the Lynx or less. Still all pc have rough and dirty voltage lines. They were never ever designed to be clean for high end audio use. So the Lynx does do some filtering but still...
and integrated laptop audio cards are ehh well not sufficient to any high end standards.
Behringer audio interfaces have a good name for their very very low price SRC2496
If you let them mod by Audiosmile
http://www.audiosmile.co.uk/src2496-875-0.html A new completely modded unit will cost US $ 720, it becomes entree level audiophile. How ever the mod does nothing to the clock.
I wanted a "super"clock. I have heard the tremendous differences between default and a Guido Tent clock in my former TEAC vdrs transport.
Audio interfaces with best clocks are very very expensive. Apogee and Lynx and Lavry Black interfaces are between 1500 and over 3000 dollars. Made for serious studio recording . I would pay that price to put 2000 LP's or more on my hdd accept the complete overkill in other features and then sell the unit 2 years from now with some loss, but still 2000 dollars is a lot of money and only Apogee is most known for their very stable clock based on their "Big Ben" stand alone studio word clock.
the cheapest Apogee with their best clock would be their X series helas their minimum is 16 channels. I only need 2..
They have a cheaper Rosetta series ( still 1990 dollars) but with a lesser clock. Still a super clock to any normal consumer standards and i would have opted for this one because of price.
I was getting prepped up full of adrenaline to inform my dearest wife when I met an article about a low priced super clock for studio audio interfaces:
http://futuremusic.com/news/testdrive/blacklionaudio_microclock_review.html and i found other several posts about how much better this clock made high well known brands like Digidesign and even the Rosetta sound. Those better interface have a clock out or in to sync with other units in the studio chain.
i followed their video link about clocks ( warning 500Kb link streaming)
http://www.gearwire.com/media/blacklion-audio-clocks.wmvI found and emailed with Black lion
http://www.blacklionaudio.com/Pages/Home and in the end discovered they have a 2 channel AD converter with built in super clock without all the whistles and bells i dont need PLUS what it does surpasses the sound quality of the Apogee Rosetta, not much but still. One owner of a Rosetta M200 sold his in favor of the "Sparrow", the name of the Black Lion Unit.
I also found this post ( lost the link) :
"After this comparison, I bought a Lynx L22. Sounds very sweet and probably comparable to the Aurora. But I have to say, that even though I voted for 2 (not knowing which was which), after I got to hear Lynx and Sparrow both at home, I really really like the sound of the Sparrow on my acoustic guitar. So revealing in such a musical way. All of the slight nuances, openness and harmonic material are present. Not to downgrade the Lynx at all. I love it, nice, full, detailed and smooth. I'm super stoked to have both.
price? US $650
The Sparrow can sample to a max of 192 khz. That is too much as my preamp can only handle 96K. So i will record in 96K. The Next SqueezeBox or Duet will accommodate 96K also. So i will be future proof. I will down sample the 96k files finally to red book standards as that is what the SB3 needs to play.
So I am a happy camper. I bought the unit. Maybe I am too much of a perfectionist? Maybe, but my records are my best music sources i have, and any compromise in phono preamp or conversion will feed the rest of my system. Let the opposite happens of garbage in, garbage out
I will use a M-Audio 24 bit 96K audio PCI card with S/PDIF in. It is the driver and mixing software on the windows XP desktop of the Maudio card that will handle the "Sparrow" I must set within the Maudio software mixer the clock signal to 'external" The audio card will slave itself to the Sparrow and the pc has no influence to the clock signal ( in theorie?)
Which software to use
i don't know yet
