Topic: Archiving Old Media - Best Soundcard ?

[tjd]

Howdy All,

I am looking to start a project to archive my collection of DAT,
Beta-PCM (yes, I still have 2 working Beta decks and a 501 & 601),
and cassettes.  I did the reel-to-reel to DAT archiving a decade ago.
Now, before the media degrades, I want to get it onto HDD and then CD/DVD. 

My question is - what is the best ($$$ not an issue) sound card for a PC to use ?
I've seen a ton of discuission on this already, and am looking for the definitive card.

Needs:
1) Digital in (Coax SPDIF).
2) Card does not resample 44.1 input.
3) Ability to resample 48 > 44.1
4) Analog in (for cassette) with great A/D
5) SCMS management (not a necessity - just need to hook up the SCMS zapper in line if it's an issue)
6) Supported under W-XP Sp2

Thanks in advance for any suggestions you might have for the best card.

[kindms]

well if $ isnt an issue then the sky is the limit.

RME
Lynx0ne
Egosys

just to name a few.

I really like the RME stuff. some of the cards they sell have tremendous amout of daughter boards etc that will allow you to configure / add whatever inputs u might need. Not the cheapest things in the world but very nice

http://www.rme-audio.com/english/index.htm

http://www.lynxstudio.com/products.html

http://www.egosys.net/

[Brian Skalinder]

I'd break the it into sub-projects:

Digital transfers
For digital transfers, there are at least a handful of inexpensive, bit-transparent soundcards that satisfy your criteria (1-3, 6, not sure about 5).  But I'm curious - why the need to resample from 48k > 44.1k?  If you're archiving, you're better off maintaining the quality of the master recording as closely as possible - in this case, stick with 48k.  You can always downsample later via software with batch processing.

Analog transfers
You don't want to do the analog to digital conversion with the soundcard if it's IN your computer.  The insides of a computer are an inherently nasty environment and will generate noticeable noise during the A>D conversion process.  So...either <1> get an external soundcard that satisfies both your digital and analog needs, or <2> get an outboard ADC that will feed the soundcard you get for the Digital Transfers above.  Lots of outboard ADCs out there, and if you're not limited to something that's portable, you have literally gobs of options.  And for analog transfers, I'd stick with 24-bit, 96 kHz.

Sorry I don't have any specific gear recommendations at this time, but hopefully my comments are useful.

[tjd]

I'd break the it into sub-projects:

Digital transfers
For digital transfers, there are at least a handful of inexpensive, bit-transparent soundcards that satisfy your criteria (1-3, 6, not sure about 5).  But I'm curious - why the need to resample from 48k > 44.1k?  If you're archiving, you're better off maintaining the quality of the master recording as closely as possible - in this case, stick with 48k.  You can always downsample later via software with batch processing.

Resampling is to listen to them on CD.  Random access to music will be much more listened to than the sequential access the tapes currently offer...

Thanks for the comments.

[dnsacks]

best bet is to still archive anything recorded @ 48k in its native (48k) format and to use software resampling (via wavelab/etc., which is generally higher quality than hardware resampling) to create a 44.1k copy after transfer is complete.