Welshsox
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Setting up a server, whats the ideal method ?
mrlowry
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Wow, that's pretty ambitious! There are quite a few phono stages out there with USB. Project makes one (http://www.sumikoaudio.net/project/products/phonobox_2_usb.htm) as does bellari (couldn't find an offical site for them.) You could also probably look into inexpensive studio A/D converters or a stand alone CD burner which would add complexity but might lead to better transfers. Although if you just want the digital files for the iPod that might be overkill.

The SACD will probably give you the most problem because almost for a number of reasons. First, I'm not aware of any media players that work with DSD (SACD's native language.) Second not many DAC's understand DSD. You might have to change it to analog (by playing it on an SACD player) then record that signal at 24/96 or 24/192 as a PCM file (think of it as essentially converting it to DVD-A.) Not the best solution but it would work.

Out of all of the ready made music servers that I've heard (and I have heard many of them) The Arcam MS250 is by far the best sounding. Though of course it is pricy and it's analog inputs for recording didn't allow you to divide up analog recordings after the fact (at least they didn't when I played around with it early in it's life. Since it's a software driven piece they might be able to add that capability.) But it doesn't address SACD or DVD-A.

I wish you the best of luck. I'll be following the thread with much interest.

Welshsox
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Hi

I was not thinking of using a USB phono stage, this is a very limiting criteria. I really wanted to go with the PS audio phono which is strictly in the analog domain. My end result is to have a great turntable with everything else in the digital domain on a hard drive, including my albums as very high quality digital files.

Im assuming that i could get a DAC that has a USB stage that would also output digital ? is that a reasonable assumption or are all DACS purely D - A with no reverse path available ?

Another option based on that same assumption was that i could use my existing gear to output to a DAC via fibre and then use the DAC output via USB to a server then sample straight into a digital file.

I know this is a little ambitious but I think the path im looking at is probably of interest to a lot of people.

Let see what we can work out between us all, a collection of all our knowledge should grant success !!

Alan

mrlowry
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Unfortunately audiophile DACS are Digital to Analog only. There might be some units on the Pro (studio) side that do D to A and A to D but I plead ignorance when it comes to recording studio stuff. I agree that it would be really handy, especially with the increasing relevance that vinyl is currently enjoying. It's something that manufacturers should look into especially outputting it on USB so that it could be recorded to a computer hard drive in a single step.

Welshsox
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There has to be a resonably easy way to do it.

Just need to figure it out

Welshsox
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Check this out
http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/imic/#

You think its as simple as it looks ?

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