Since I am going through a revival in my interest in making digital recordings, I decided to do something that I had always wanted to do, but was put on the back burner due to procrastination and waning interest.
What I did was to make three recordings of different resolutions of the same track played on a turntable connected to a phono preamp and thence to a digital recorder.
I chose an old LP so that it would undeniably be an analogue recording. The problem these days is that many new-issue LPs are recorded and mastered digitally, mostly on Pro Tools digital audio workstation.
The track that I chose was Billie Holiday’s One for My Baby (and One More for the Road) from Songs for Distingué Lovers. The LP was a 45 rpm Verve audiophile reissue. According to Google’s AI, this album was recorded in 1957 and released a year later in both mono and stereo versions. So I can confirm that the songs were recorded on tape using valve mic preamps and amps.
The system I used comprised a souped-up Rega Planar 3 turntable with RB250 tonearm and Benz Glider MC cartridge, an AIME (made by Audio Image Musical Experience, a Malaysian company) phono preamp, a Mogami RCA to 3.5mm cable and the Sound Devices MixPre II digital recorder. The turntable and phono preamp were plugged into an iFi PowerStation while the digital recorder was connected to a power bank.
After adjusting the volume, I recorded the same song at the same volume using three resolutions — the first recording was on 16 bit 44.1 kHz resolution (which is CD quality), the second was on 24/96 and the third was on 24/192.
All the files were recorded in WAV and converted to FLAC with JRiver v28. The 24/96 and 24/192 files have been shortened because the original files were too large to be uploaded.
Please use an external DAC and a pair of good headphones to listen to these files:
The 16 bit/44.1 kHz recording.
The 24/96 recording.
The 24/192 recording.
