384/32 and/or 256DSD recording

Jo Mu · April 9, 2022

I’m going to create digital archives of some vinyl that isn’t available in a decent digital form for a variety of reasons.

192/24 is good and very portable, but since I’m sampling analog, I’d like to get the best representation of the analog signal I can. Disk space is cheap so why not?

Please spare this topic from the Nyquist Groupies comments about whether it’s necessary. I’m looking for the hardware to create this hi-res PCM or DSD. I see a few available and wonder if anyone has any experience with these and if they have severe shortcomings like hi jitter, or just plain bad sound?

hytheaway · April 10, 2022

do you have specific hardware in mind that you're asking about? what is your full setup like?

you're right, disk space is cheap, and i won't groan about what's "necessary" or not, but if the difference between 24/96, 24/192, and 32/384 matters to you, it's hard for anyone to help unless they know your exact setup. if you're looking for hardware that has any involvement in writing PCM or DSD, it's likely that you're looking for an AD/DA converter. in terms of jitter, prism audio has stuff that's kinda unparalleled. hyper transparent, and a really stable clock with great clock adjustment, but i dont remember if their equipment supports >192kHz. rme is another company to take a look at, i've heard people talk about the adi-2 pro fs r be. as im sure you're aware, the connections you use will also be important. spdif, for example, isn't high bandwidth enough for greater than DSD64.

when looking to record at this speed, reliable clocks are really important for every module in your signal chain. use the worst clock in your signal chain as the master clock. if everything else is better, then it should also be able to adjust for the unstable clocking that's being fed. that's one of the best ways to avoid jitter. it's not an end all, be all, but if you're buying a piece of hardware that is capable of this high speed recording, it's likely going to be pretty expensive, and if it's going to be expensive, it probably won't have a bad sound, or at the very least, it is likely that it will have a very transparent sound.

also as a small thing, you have your nomenclature backwards. convention is: bit depth/sample rate, or DSDmultiplier

tl;dr - there's a very large possibility i haven't effectively answered your question, so apologies in advance if that's the case. just let me know and i'll be happy to be more specific. idr if prism has an ad/da converter that supports >192kHz, but i am certain rme does. if that's the component that you feel you're missing, then i think rme is a great place to start.

OfficialTechSpace · April 10, 2022

Most vinyl has a bandwidth of about 18kHz. Fresh, quality-pressed vinyl also has a dynamic range of about 70dB, which equates to roughly 12 bits. Thereby, there's scientifically no point in archiving above 44.1/16 unless you're using an insane amount of post-processing, in which case 24 bits might suffice.

This is an unpopular opinion (despite being accurate) but people who store lossy formats like vinyl in high sample rate / high bit-depth lossless digital containers are a bit goofy.