I'm currently in the process of starting to transfer my vinyl over to hard disk (recording from an AT-PL120 turntable into an M-Audio Audiophile 2496 card) and I noticed the highest volume that I can achieve with all sliders to full in the mixer is relatively lower than I expected--around 91 or 92dB. I transferred a few LPs before I had the audio card and could get volumes much higher, such that I would need to reduce the input level to avoid clipping. With the card installed, it seems I don't have much to set in the way of input levels, as I'm not getting anywhere near loud enough to worry about clipping. I have noticed that if I pan both channels dead center it will increase the volume somewhat, but that's only lumping both left and right together. So I'm asking--what is the average dB level to look for when ripping vinyl? I realize it will vary from record to record, but is a max level of 92dB "normal"?

It is hard to guess what you are measuring as "92dB." Soundcard levels, and those of all recording programs, are from 0dB down. They are all relative to the maximum signal level the card can accept without clipping. the numbers have no absolute meaning.

Soundcard input stages vary quite a bit. Phono cartridges and phono preamps vary quite a bit. Any given combination might produce levels that clip or levels that are lower than optimum. With the Audiophile, maximum peaks that are anywhere from -18dB to 0dB are definitely good; -24dB is likely to not be any problem and should be expected from some LPs. If all LPs produce lower peak input levels, a mixer or line level preamp might be worth considering.

Once you have the recording made, the ultimate level is whatever you desire. I generally normalize to 97%, but the figure is purely arbitrary.

Well, when I transfer LPs to PC, I usually do it with peak up to -6 dB, and sometimes I play the wrong part of the record to adjust peak, so it goes up to -3 . Then I filter out pops and hisses, normalize by peak to 0 dB, and then I look if I can make RMS normalization.
What program are you using, yousuffer?

Err... I came up with the 92dB figure from MP3Gain's track analysis when checking for clipping.

I'm using Audacity to record the .wavs at 32bit/9600.

Before the new soundcard I was using onboard audio and was able to achieve something that looked like this (no clipping, no normalization)



And now with the new soundcard everything is much quieter (once again, no normalization, everything set to max in the mixer)



Same record, same turntable, different audio card. Is this to be expected? I'm for the most part a total newbie at all of this, so I'm not sure if quieter in this sense is necessarily better.

Most likely the onboard card does digital multiplication to the recorded values, the thing you can easily do in any audio editor afterwards. Most cheap recording solutions I came by actually could not be locked to the line level.

Looks like there's a polarity inversion between the two recordings. It also sounds like you need a phono preamp. Is the frequency response correct or do your recordings lack bass?

I recommend recording from the direct hardware inputs when using the Audiophile; the card’s DSP mixer chip is then not in the signal path. You can’t do anything useful with it when recording vinyl, its value is for monitoring live recordings against previously recorded tracks.

It would be nicer if the program’s vertical scale was something more useful (i.e. dB level) instead of merely min to max, but there does not seem to be any problem with the levels, other than that the waveform looks a little strange having so much more variation on one side (minus in the Audiophile recording) than on the other (plus side). This could simply be a normal characteristic of that particular material.

The Audiophile’s inputs are straight line level, the same as almost every other professional or semi-pro card. With built-in and other game/multi-media cards, you don’t really know what you are getting.

It seems if I use the hardware input to record from I can't adjust the volume level at all (or at least havn't figured out how, everything seems contained on the Delta Control Panel). Is this what you mean by straight line level?

It means basically you can;t boost, you can only trim. If you want higher peak levels, you'll have to have an adjustable preamp in the line somewhere. Btw, your waveforms look bizarre, there's something off in your system as is.

And there is no need to. The mixer is good for monitoring the incoming signal, if you don't have a hardware knob on your speakers or it is far away.

If fact, the card can neither increase or decrease the analogue input level. Any changes must be done in the analogue domain, before reaching the soundcard.

If you run the data through the card's DSP chip (the Monitor Mixer) you can decrease the level that the recording program sees, but that is pure silliness. The analogue signal has already gone through the ADC converters before that point, so all you are doing is reducing the bit depth that actually gets recorded to disk. There is no benefit in this.

If you use the DSP mixer to mix two different input streams (e.g. analogue in and S/PDIF in) you may need to decrease the level going to the recording program; the sum of the two inputs could exceed 0dB. However, the better approach would be to record each input to a different track in a multi-track recording program and make adjustments at your leisure after recording.

I can't tell about card's imputs, but your pictures looks not correct (both with new and old card). One shoud expect symmetry in y-axis. Is your turntable tuned OK?

Yeah, soundcard gains are typically fixed; pro ADCs are really the only devices that have significant hardware-level control over the gain, and even then it may just be a mixer.

As mentioned earlier, what's a bit more concerning is the waveform asymmetry. That may be evidence of an overloaded phono stage, or a dirty stylus, or (heaven forbid) a flat-out worn stylus. You might want to grab a 10-100x magnifier and see how gunky the stylus is, or just get a Magic Eraser and lightly lower/lift the cartridge onto it and see if anything falls off.

Recording LPs with the peaks higher than about -20db or so ought to be fine even at 32 bits. There really is a lot of low level white noise in most albums that will cover the digital noise floor.

I tried recording a different LP, which seemed to look better as far as symmetry goes:



The stylus *should* be fine, but some crud on it is certainly a possibility. It can't have more than 30 hours of playing time on it, though. Don't really know how to go about solving the phono stage, if indeed that's the issue.

As far as amplifying/attenuating the signal before it reaches the soundcard, will a preamp accomplish this or will a mixer or combination thereof be needed?

Thank you all for your responses so far, you've been really helpful.

Mixers typically contain line-level preamps. Therefore a mixer or a line-level preamp are equivalent. Mixers also have other facilities, but none of these are relevant to your pursuit. A mixer can almost certainly be had for less money.

The waveform of that last recording looks ‘normal.’ The turntable has a built-in phono preamp, no? There is probably some easy way to bypass it, if you want to use a separate phono preamp. If you do get such a device, it may produce a higher level, or a lower level signal for the soundcard input. There have been a number of posts in this forum from Audiophile 2496 users whose vinyl transfers constantly clipped badly.


When you listen to the TT output on a hifi system, no A to D involved, does it sound good? The signal you record through the soundcard will be as good as the signal you feed to your analogue playback system directly from the TT output.


You know of a ‘pro’ soundcard that has line-level input level control?

Crud of various kinds, but mostly hair/lint, can accumulate on a stylus over the course of even a single play. That said, it can just a easily come off, it may not be audible, etc.