Best Method(sound quality wise) for recording records to digital files?

Back in the day I used to have some Vestax(forget the model #) turntables & Ortofon cartridges. It's been some time since I've had a turntable, but I still have lots of records(house, techno, etc..) USB turntables seem to be pretty popular these days, but how are they for recording/sound quality?

I don't really care much to play my old records again... but would love to convert them to FLAC/MP3. What do you guys use/recommend? Are these USB turntables good?

No, they suck.

But it sounds like you're split. Subject says you're looking for the best option in terms of sound quality. If you want to go down that route, you'll need a good turntable and an amp with an unbalanced 1/4" stereo output. That signal should be piped to your computer via either a PCI sound card (meh option) or USB 3.0 / FW800 / Thunderbolt audio interface. This is an analogue to digital converter which also features a pre-amp. You plug the 1/4" cable(s) into there and set your recording program (Logic or ProTools) to hear that signal. You want to set it for the highest sample rate and bit rate as possible and you want to optimize it for accuracy as opposed to low latency, as you're just recording the record, not listening back to it in real-time. You'll want to record to WAV, which is uncompressed, lossless audio. You can then transcode to ALAC / FLAC (compressed but full quality lossless audio) or MP3 or whatever you want.

If you want to do it just for kicks? You could go from your amp straight to the computer and skip the audio interface by using a 1/4" to 3.5mm adapter plugged into the audio-in jack on your computer. You could use freeware audio recording software.

Honestly, why not just download 320kpbs MP3's or even FLAC's of your albums? As far as I'm concerned if you own the record you own that music no matter if it's in a digital format or whatever (if that even bothers you). Those recordings are also mastered by people with WAY better equipment than most of us will ever own.

If you have some super rare music which isn't in a digital format anywhere then maybe I would look into how to make a good quality digital format from your records. - and I totally get that lots of techno/house/DnB/etc. vinyl was never transferred electronically (DnB fan myself...can't find a ton of shit I used to own electronically).

If you don't already have a nice turn table and good-quality audio interface, I don't see how it's worth going down this road vs. just getting FLACs of your albums, as the little fella up above says.

fakeXsound: I prefer PC(my primary system is such), but I have a few Mac's laying around. I'm assuming you suggest using the Mac since you mentioned Thunderbolt and Logic.

Dochartaigh: I have a lot of records that were only released in that format. So no proper flac/mp3's around.

Transfer it to magnetic tape on a Revox PR99 Mk II,

Cylotron said:

fakeXsound: I prefer PC(my primary system is such), but I have a few Mac's laying around. I'm assuming you suggest using the Mac since you mentioned Thunderbolt and Logic.

Dochartaigh: I have a lot of records that were only released in that format. So no proper flac/mp3's around.

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Nope, no need to use a Mac. It's just what I use. Any modern audio interface should be compatible with both platforms. The only caveat would be to make sure your system has a dedicated audio processor (as opposed to the CPU taking over those tasks). If you don't have one on your motherboard, you can get a PCI one. Back in the day, a Mac may have been a technically better option out of the box due to FW800. But USB 3.0 has enough bandwidth for a single stereo source.

Reasons for digitizing a vinyl record:
1. Record was only released on vinyl. I don't know about other music, but this is somewhat common in punk and hardcore, which had a lot of 7" records that were never published on CD.
2. Vinyl records have usually been mastered differently to account for the format's differences from digital. This creates a somewhat less articulate overall sound. This can be good or bad depending on your taste and the particular piece of music at hand. Think of it as the difference between a movie that uses grainy film stock vs. a movie that uses 8K digital capture. The film creates a soft, eye-pleasing looks, whereas the 8K footage is extremely sharp. Each has its place. You'd want something a little soft for something like jazz or blues or older rock stuff that actually sounds bad on CD because the recording equipment and methods back then were so rudimentary. You'd want something sharp for anything modern or maybe for orchestral stuff, as digital lends itself more towards frequency separation (i.e., being able to hear each instrument on its own as opposed to being all sonically lumped in together). Personally, I buy CDs (along with high res audio versions of the CDs if they're available) and do not own a turntable, though I do buy the vinyl versions of my favorite albums. I would like to get a Technics SL 1200 some day, but I'd rather spend my money on more CDs at the moment.