What is better-casette or CD-for classical music

[mgh]

I have about 300 plus LPS of classical music from Bach's Brandenburg Concertos to Verdi's Requiem.
Have two technics turntables with higher end Shure cartridges ,a powerful Toshiba Receiver, an Aiwa tapedeck with both Dolby B and C available and dynaco speakers.
Good quality Casettes are substantially more expensive than blank CDs.
From a quality standpoint and long term preservation-will I be better off converting to CD or recording to casettes?
I love the music and would love to have it available "for ever".
Am retiring in a year or so -so will have ample time.
Would be happy to receive advice from members who are also into Hi-Fidelity sound.

[yoda313]

Hello,

I did a record to cd transfer on a standalone cd recorder and the quality was quite good. Of course if you have scratched records the bad sound will be transfered as well.

The cd is a better option because it will be easier to backup to mp3 if you decide to do so in the future. Plus you get the benefit of making tracks to skip to a specific song.

Kevin

---Also, cds won't fade with time and playing like cassettes - as long as you care for them properly ----

[Bodyslide]

I have converted about 100 LP's for a friend to CD. You also will be able to combine certain LP's. Alot of my friends music was only 40 minutes in length. Also make sure you have a good sound card for the capture. Plus I also made him MP3's of all the music and stored it on DVD-R's.

[trossin]

I would go with CD. Tapes hiss even with Dolby B & C. Every time you play them you rub some particles off the tape (they get worse as you play them). CDs sound pretty good but if you are really a nutcase about audio quailty you can look into DVD audio (Supper Audio CD I think). I think you get to use 24-bits per channel instead of 16 with normal audio CDs.

Either way I would go to digital land for archiving your LPs. The only problem is that you will probably be dead before you convert 300 LPs to CD format if you use a computer. I have done a few LPs and found it to be a dull and tiresome process.

I think that some company is selling a stand alone box to record RCA audio jack in to a CD. The goal is to give up the computer editing and just make it like using a cassette deck.

I believe that a CD will last longer than a tape/tape deck and will sound better. As you age your ears start to really suck. I have many 30 to 40 year old friends who can not hear the 15 KHz horizontal refresh noise made by a TV set. For some reason I (a 42 year old fart) can still hear it.

Trying doing a backup to a tape and to a CD and see if you can tell the difference. If you can't the choice is easy choose CD. If you can, think about how much it sounds different and factor in your hearing loss with age. I would be that you would still be happy with CD.

Sorry to ramble on.

[mgh]

Thanx yoda313 for your prompt response

I have maintained my LPs well and have proper LP cleaning tools.
My concern is sound quality and longevity.
Converting to CD is more work-don't mind as i said will have ample time on my hands.
The casette deck gives almost as good a quality as the original-especially with Dolby C-properly encoded CDs hopefully will be the same-but i am not too sure which will be the long term option. Casettes are still a very popular medium.
In a sense, I am expecting help on predicting the future and also the quality. Have read at many places that analog audio quality has never been matched by digital audio.
Have been out of touch with audio developments-that is why the request.

[lenti_75]

i would use a standalone cd recorder.......don't go for a computer sound card.

faster, and the quality is better. use a cd-rw and then you can author on pc......

[smearbrick1]

Have read at many places that analog audio quality has never been matched by digital audio.

I think you might have misinterpreted what you read. The clarity of digital audio is unsurpassed when compared to the convential analog audio cassette. Due to the limitations of the tape media, certain frequencies are lost when recorded while others can have a compressed sound. What the article may have meant is that some recording engineers like analog tape for the tape compression (just overload the input signal to the tape... voila!! tape compression) this results in a much warmer, less tinny sound, as can be experienced with digital. However, to each his own. If you would do a side by side comparison of analog tape to digital media, depending your ears, you should definately hear a difference.

In the realm of classical music; because of the precision of the sound, I don't think analog would cut it. I definately recommend putting those LPs on CD. The end product will sound so much better and last so much longer.

[Almost Human]

The last time I went into a audio/video store (BestBuy included) there were NO quality cassette recorders being sold. If yours developed an unfixable problem, it would be back to the drawing board. Don't get me wrong, I love cassettes, and have a high-end Sony with HX PRO. The problem is vanishing quality hardware.

The best bet for archiving at this time is DVDR or CDR. The preferable method would be:

Record to the HD in WAV using Audacity (freeware).
Use Audacity to remove pops and other noises at lowest setting you can
Write to DVDR or CDR as a data file (.wav) - make two copies

Now you have the best quality long term storage. You can play it on any PC, and you can convert it to any format or medium you want at any time.

[Almost Human]

A quality sound card is an absolute must. I recommend the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, I have one of these for each of my computers. Can be found for under $70. Sound Blaster Audigy would be a second choice, although they can be problematic installing and configuring. Some of the recent high-end motherboards have very good built-in sound cards.

[dphirschler]

Make CDs to listen to and for portability, or even mp3 for extra portability. For longivety, the CDs will be adequate too. And you'll always have your LPs, so you can make another backup in case the CD fails down the road. And you can make shn or flac CDs for another digital backup (which can also be played directly on the PC).

It's not so bad. You can record the audio onto the PC while you are doing something else. Come back to the PC in 30 mins or so, flip the record and record side 2. In the PC, all you have to do is crop the silence at the beginning and end, track it, normalize it, and burn. I wouldn't worry about pop and click removal.


Darryl

[solarfox]

I think that some company is selling a stand alone box to record RCA audio jack in to a CD. The goal is to give up the computer editing and just make it like using a cassette deck.

Dude, "some companies" have been selling stand-alone CD recorders for ages, now. Of course, they're just minor little niche-market brands like Sony, Aiwa, Philips, and Denon, so I suppose it's possible you've never heard much about them...

mgh -- Whether you go the standalone-recorder route or the import-to-PC route depends greatly on how much time you want to invest in this, what kind of condition your records are in, and how much of a nitpicky perfectionist you are.

Doing it on the PC will take longer, since you have to capture the audio, then turn around and burn it to disc. The process will also tie up your PC for long periods -- since Windows is well-known for it's general inability to walk and chew gum at the same time, you won't want to risk running any process more CPU-intensive than Notepad while doing the audio captures.

Recording to a standalone unit, on the other hand, is relatively "fire-and-forget"; it's very much like using a cassette deck in that regard. There's very little that can go wrong (other than a skipping record, anyway) and it doesn't require your active attention for most of the process.

On the other hand, the PC route will give you greater flexibility in the finished product. If you have vinyl that hasn't aged well, you can attempt to repair clicks, pops, and surface noise (and the newer software does a pretty good job of it); you can define your own track markers, combine or split tracks as you see fit, make compilations from multiple sources, adjust the relative volume of adjacent tracks, and so on.

For the amount of music you have, I'd take a hybrid approach: consider getting a standalone CD recorder to handle most of it, keeping the PC route in mind for any records that may need some heavy-duty post-processing to sound good. The only downside is that standalones force you to use "Music CD-R's", which are exactly the same as "Data CD-R's" except that the Music ones have a special code stamped into them which tells the recorder that the RIAA collected their extortion fees from you. (The RIAA gets a per-unit fee from each blank Music CD-R sold, as a "piracy tax.")

[lordsmurf]

In good faith, I don't think I could recommend the Santa Cruz for audio work like this. It tends to be low volume for no reason, not as rich as others. The SoundBlaster line is definitely my top marker for this.

The PC soundcard is a must, as you can then go into SoundForge (or another editor) and clean up the audio to remove all imperfections. Burn a perfect-as-possible CD, and sit back to enjoy the music.

[indolikaa]

How about recording your LPs through a high-end Sound Blaster card at 96kHz?

[thor300]

This was discussed in the 1980'ies, but tape was considered to be so inferior that it was not mentioned much. The problems many people poited out was that the low sampling frequency of CDs made some sounds less clear on CD compared to LP played on high end LP players. With a sampling of 96khz that should be ok, so i would try indolikaas suggestion for max quality.

[gshelley61]

I too would suggest recording to CD-R with a standalone recorder. Doesn't the new Lite On 5005 DVD recorder also burn CD's? I think it does. That might be a good investment...

I would consider experimenting with mildly processing the audio output of your turntable pre-amp with a nice analog EQ, and maybe an old DBX dynamic range expander, etc. These devices can really punch up the sound and fidelity of vinyl LP's when transferred to a digital format. You might want to use an EQ that has a 20Hz low-end cutoff switch to eliminate inaudible table rumble, too.

[mgh]

Thanx a ton guys.
Will start looking for a CD recorder.
Will mull over all the information so kindly provided by you -take some trials in the meanwhile will try to take some trials.
Thanx

[iantri]

Be very careful about buying standalone recorders.

Most (all?) only take "CD-R Audio" discs, which are essentially the same as regular CD-Rs except for a pre-written area that identifies it as a CD-R Audio disc.

The cost of these discs are signifigantly higher (we are talking 3-5x the cost of regular CD-R, maybe more), supposedly to recoup money lost from music piracy.

EDIT: Oops.. I see this was touched upon above.

[dfisher]

I have had excellent results recording thru a Technics power amp that is connected to my computer. I listen to everything thru the amp using Sony speakers. I can record from both records & cassettes. I record onto the computer using either Polderbits or Total Recorder & then remove all clicks & pops with Goldwave. They are all shareware but very low cost & work better then most freeware & well worth the small price. I make my CD's using Roxio Creator Classic. I must say that in most cases they sound as good as any commercial cd.

[Hardcoreruss]

I think it all depends on what you are going to listen to them on. I would lean to CD as I use an ipod, but if you are a tape affecianado then its a no brainer.

[Dr_Layne]

Here's another option, if you plan on only listening to the recordings at home. If you have a dvd burner, record them at 16bit 48khtz and use Tmpgenc DVD Author to make a audio DVD. You'll be able to put about 6 LP's onto one disc and the quality will be a tad better than cd.

Steve

[VideoTechMan]

Interesting and great topic!

I too have a ton of LP's and 45's to get onto CD though I dont have any classical stuff. Back in the cassette days I only bought the high end cassettes (the Type IV Metal tapes) because of their higher quality sound and the fact you can raise the recording levels a bit higher without distortions unlike regular cassettes.

I would recommend the CD route too.....Ive heard alot about CD-recorders for years, but were always more expensive compared to the regular CD-burners you could use. And now that I have just read in the earlier posts about the higher cost of the Music-CD-R's because of that RIAA crap, I will pretty much stay away from the CD recorders. But that is just me.

I also have the R2R (reel to reel) 4-Track recorder also (a studio deck), and I have heard at one time they rivaled the quality of CD's, maybe because of the quality of tape that was used or something, but in the few test recordings I tested with it it sound very good.

Anyway, I dont mind taking the extra time to record my record collection to my computer. I have Adobe Audition so I know that program can do alot to help process and clean up the records, including some of the older ones that have some scratches and pops (but then again it was a classic to hear that in the old days lol). And then afterward I can put them on CD and make as many compilations as I would like...not to mention that tapes can falter in excessive heat, old cassette players that like to have tapes for breakfast, and so on.

I know I have a few cassette tapes that are 14 years old that still plays well--the tape broke at one spot several years ago I repaired and it never sounded like anything was wrong with it. But then again I care quite well for my tapes too.

After putting your collection to CD, then all you would have to do is play them in an 5-CD disc changer and have a glass of wine.

VTM

[iantri]

Be warned that you should not fall into the trap of thinking that your CDs will last forever.. pressed (commercial) CDs will last at LEAST 25 years, maybe up to 100. However, CD-Rs have conked out (in extreme cases) in as little as 2 years with cheap brands, 7-10 years with good brands. Of course, we have only have consumer CD burning technology for about 10 years so it is hard to say if discs have improved..

[mgh]

Thanx guys for all the info.
Have one question-I understand the rationale of encoding to 96 kHz sampling rate for classical music-but is it within Audio CD specs?
Also, what is spec for Audio CD and DVD?
Have had excellent response, including forum heavyweights-so chancing my luck a bit more!
Thanx!!

[Suntan]

I would have to agree with going digital. If you do, you have a lot of options (assuming you want to make this into a hobby...)

You could "dub" a master copy (nothing less than 24bit/96khz) uncompressed "WAV" to keep on the HD/copy as a data disc to DVD for archiving. Can also playback via computer to stereo amp for high quality listening.

Use the master to "remaster" a DVD-Video (24bit/48khz) uncompressed PCM for playback on a settop DVD player. (I don't know of any programs that allow you to author/burn a DVD-Audio disc.

Use the master to "remaster" a CD copy (16bit/44.1khz) to burn on to CDs for normal usage.

For equiptment I would suggest either an all in one sound card or a sound card/stand alone A/D converter.

In either case I would suggest the M-Audio Audiophile 24/96 soundcard for it. Mostly due to higher quality A/D and D/A converters (compared to cards like soundblaster, etc.) as well as its ASIO 2 support (which is a must for high quality sound recording to a windows platform).

If you wanted a standalone A/D device, well I don't have much experience there, but if you want to get that serious about it you really should search for a forum that is more tailored to high-def audio. At the bare minimum checkout the www.avsforum.org forums.

Aside from the M-Audio, All the software needed to clean up/remaster should be free, check out Audacity.

Again, this is if you want to make a hobby out of it.

-Suntan