No Recording Volume Adjustment for Ion TTUSB05 and AT USB Turntables, Two strikes: No pre-ADC gain, no software volume level Options

[Knowzy]

As we previously discussed, few USB turntables offer gain adjustment before the signal hits the A/D converter (see chart #2 in the USB Turntable guide for specific models).

Here's what I didn't expect: There's no way to adjust the recording volume in Windows Mixer or Audacity.

"USB Audio CODEC" Screenshots

A Regular Sound Card

Of course, you can always normalize after you're done recording. Nonetheless, I expected to find a slider in Windows Mixer, just like any other sound card.

This could just be a limitation of the Microsoft's USB Audio CODEC driver (USBAudio.sys). I'm curious if Mac and Linux users have the same limitation.

Then again, I tried Ploytec's USB ASIO driver and got the same results, so maybe it's the nature of the hardware.

In the end, I guess you can always spin it in marketing terms: It's a feature- you never need to set your levels!



A Sample Clip
With that, I present my first USB turntable sample from the Audio-Technica AT-LP2D-USB. It is the first track from the Ultimate Analogue Test LP.

This 1kHz test tone is used for, among other things, setting the recording volume to read 0VU. Obviously, I cannot do this without post-processing.

BTW, the first 10 seconds are the sounds of the tonearm automatically placing itself on the record.

Many more samples are coming this weekend.

[Knowzy]

Something else I noticed recently, incidentally, is that Vista (and Windows 7) actually *boost* the signal (in software) if you set their software-only recording level slider to maximum, often causing it to clip.

That's good to know.

Does this affect USB turntables with the TI 2904 family chips (with no sw adjustment internally)?

[Paul Sanders]

Does this affect USB turntables with the TI 2904 family chips (with no sw adjustment internally)?

Sorry, slightly late reply: yes it does.