WiiM Amp line in Resolution for vinyl

[Steve Woodhouse]

There is a current thread at the VinylStudio forums on this very subject - ignore the fact he talks about digitising for use with LMS that is irrelevant.

You will note that some of the ADCs mentioned are big ticket items over £/$2,000 but some are £/$200 ish - https://www.alpinesoft.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2829.0

I can't see the ADC in the WiiM being in the same category as even the the £/$200 devices but ....

I completely agree.

At the same time, I think it shows a great ADC could be added without taking the price to silly levels.

I’m not a vinyl fan myself, but a WiiM for vinyl enthusiasts with the option of a great ADC or direct mode (by-passing digital) is maybe something for future consideration.

 

[d6jg]

In that thread the OP is adding EQ to get the "Vinyl Sound". Doesn't he realise that digitising vinyl gives you the vinyl sound?

Evidently not. He must think that passing the PCM though an ADC adds some harshness etc.

The biggest influences are of course the quality of the vinyl and the turntable/cartridge you use.

 

[slartibartfast]

Evidently not. He must think that passing the PCM though an ADC adds some harshness etc.

The biggest influences are of course the quality of the vinyl and the turntable/cartridge you use.

That thread is full of questionable opinions. DSD is apparently smoother than PCM. If it uses a different master it could well be but convert that DSD to PCM and it will sound the same.

 

[onlyoneme]

And since the ADC is the same, sound is the same, right? Details of implementation, power supply and casing don't matter, because they only matter with DACs, right? ;-)

Back to more serious points: This was the test of the PCB version 2 unit. @onlyoneme didn't perform any testing of the analogue input with his PCY version 5 unit. He didn't attempt to measure difference due to different sample rate and bit depth settings. And for a good reason: Until we get the USB digital out feature with the WiiM Amp there is no way of precisely analysing the ADC behaviour (at least not without opening the case, which might influence the measurements).

Could you just say in your own words what you want to say to the OP without making us all guess?

You are right, I'm waiting for USB audio implementation to finish my Amp tests.

 

[harkpabst]

Happy to see you back and breathing.

 

[onlyoneme]

Happy to see you back and breathing.

Yeah, still in the hospital but going home in 2 days probably. And still alive

 

[Jls]

I'll throw this article into the mix - while it's relatively old it might have some points to consider or debate...

Digitizing Older LPs: Is CD Resolution Good Enough?

I’ve digitized hundreds of LPs using an ADVC-100 capture device. Unfortunately, they chose FireWire rather than USB, and I guess they went out of business. I used SoundForge to remove clicks and pops. It had at least four different methods, and I was always able to find one that was “inaudible”. The best most of the time was to copy from the good channel, usually one or two microseconds. The usual duration of defects was remarkably brief. Much shorter than the psychological impression.

I was digitizing vinyl, many disks from garage sales. I cleaned them with a homemade vacuum disk cleaner.

To the point, SoundForge offered noise reduction, and I found you could be fairly aggressive in removing low frequency noise, without making the music sound dead. You recorded noise from silent grooves, and subtracted this from the music grooves. You had control of the frequency bands. All very slick. No one who hears my conversations thinks they are anything but CDs or streaming.

 

[Jls]

The other thing I have to say about vinyl conversion is that none of my conversions had anything approaching 50 dB dynamic range. When I say this, I’m including noise as legitimate information.

My personal conclusion was tha LPs sound different from digital for two reasons. First, they are dynamically compressed. This is probably because the arranger/conductor/performer chose performance parameters that wouldn’t exceed the limits of LPs.

The second reason is that random noise, hiss, makes the sound psychologically more pleasing. This is treading on toes, so I’ll just say it’s my suspicion.

 

[Brantome]

My personal conclusion was tha LPs sound different from digital for two reasons. First, they are dynamically compressed. This is probably because the arranger/conductor/performer chose performance parameters that wouldn’t exceed the limits of LPs.

Is that not really more down to the mastering engineer to make those decisions when cutting the disc?

 

[slartibartfast]

Is that not really more down to the mastering engineer to make those decisions when cutting the disc?

Exactly. There is no excuse for producing CDs and digital files with lower dynamic range than vinyl but it happens frequently. I bet many digital files have a dynamic range much lower than 50dB.

 

[Jls]

Is that not really more down to the mastering engineer to make those decisions when cutting the disc?

What was a 1970 engineer going to do with a performance or recording with too high a dynamic range? I’m thinking mostly classical. I’m pretty sure performers learned to conform to the limitations of the media. But when symphony orchestras were recorded, most companies used lots of microphones so the sound could be balanced at the console.

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

What was a 1970 engineer going to do with a performance or recording with too high a dynamic range? I’m thinking mostly classical. I’m pretty sure performers learned to conform to the limitations of the media. But when symphony orchestras were recorded, most companies used lots of microphones so the sound could be balanced at the console.

Because they like to get as much in the tape as possible.

Reduction to allow for limitations of the playback format are usually made at the last point in the chain - for example, cutting a vinyl master so that the dynamic range isn’t so high that it makes the needle jump is something usually done literally ‘live’ while the master is being cut.

 

[d6jg]

What was a 1970 engineer going to do with a performance or recording with too high a dynamic range? I’m thinking mostly classical. I’m pretty sure performers learned to conform to the limitations of the media. But when symphony orchestras were recorded, most companies used lots of microphones so the sound could be balanced at the console.

Because they like to get as much in the tape as possible.

Reduction to allow for limitations of the playback format are usually made at the last point in the chain - for example, cutting a vinyl master so that the dynamic range isn’t so high that it makes the needle jump is something usually done literally ‘live’ while the master is being cut.

Interesting question.
Prior to digital, recording an Orchestra must have used a multiple microphone approach into the recording desk and then onto a multi track tape. I'm sure they would not use multiple track overdubs like they do recording a Rock or Pop studio album but probably only make minor adjustments to the recorded sound per channel with the "fiddling" done as Steve says at the mastering stage. I imagine that as we are now in the digital age things may have changed somewhat.
Live Rock albums used to be recorded in the same way but with a doubling up of microphones 1. for the recording desk and 2. for the mixing desk that controls the PA. I say, used to be the same, as in the mid 70s Live Rock albums started to be recorded directly off the mixing desk. 801 Live is considered to be the first album recorded that way - and you can tell as the SQ is really quite good.

 

[Jls]

Taking Culshaw and Solti's Decca Ring as example this is an interesting deep dive in recording classical music those days.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/David-Patmore/publication/258173068_Making_and_Hearing_Virtual_Worlds_John_Culshaw_and_the_Art_of_Record_Production/links/5ddb9e8f299bf10c5a311f19/Making-and-Hearing-Virtual-Worlds-John-Culshaw-and-the-Art-of-Record-Production

This dates me, but the first LP I bought was that Reingold. 1963.

In the US the label was London ffrr. Full frequency range recording.

 

[MrA]

Using my default Phono stage I’ve been comparing line-in input to the Ultra with direct input into my main preamp - I use subtle WiiM room eq and wanted all sources to benefit from this.

Vinyl replay processed via my external DAC using the USB output from the Ultra would default to 16/48 even though line-in is set to 24/192 (USB input to my DAC has a max of 24/48, coax & optical inputs are 24/192). Changing line-in to coax output from the Ultra this then reverts to 24/192.

Digital (Streamed +CD +USB storage)
The thing is, with streamed (digital) music from the Ultra USB to the DAC the overall sound is extremely smooth and basically ‘perfect’ at 24/48 whereas using Coax there is a slight brittleness to music and it became more fatiguing to listen to. Maybe this is due to some slight clock irregularity which is not present using the USB stream?

Analogue (Vinyl…& presumably SACD when I decide to play some)
However for vinyl I prefer the overall sound using Coax output to the DAC rather than USB - maybe higher resolution processing remains truer to the source? (as my entire system has been digitally processed for the past twelve years I find the overall benefits of digital crossovers & speaker/sub time correction far outweigh any slight digital artefacts that presumably impart into sound).

So in my system all digital sources are now processed at 24/48 max and analogue at 24/192

Adding the Ultra to my system has made a significant difference to various aspects and I’m extremely happy with the result - vinyl has never been as enjoyable as this even though I have over 4000 LPs acquired over nearly 50 years, some of which are now extremely rare and impossible to replace.

(one gripe - when choosing line-in 'Recommended name' as Record Player, the rectangular graphic looks like some sort of ghetto blaster - why not a circular representation of a record player? the Ultra screen when playing just looks wrong!)