And MP3 can go over 0dB so it’s not necessarily clipped, although you will clip your DAC if you play it at “full digital volume”. If you hear a compression artifact it’s probably something else. We already know that MP3 is “imperfect” and I don’t think the slight clipping caused by MP3 compression is audible. Personally, I don’t worry about it… Probably half of the MP3s I ripped from CD “show clipping” in Audacity.
…This might not be an issue with vinyl because the vinyl cutting & playback process does something similar and sort-of “randomizes” the peaks. For that reason, some people leave 1 or 2dB of headroom when making an MP3. MP3 compression changes the wave shape making some peaks higher and some lower and the hew-higher peaks can go over 0dB and you’ll have potential clipping. My problem is that I do have a very good musical ear and I notice some clipping in the MP3s but nothing that most people would notice.Īs you probably know MP3 is lossy compression, although it can sound very good (1). I may have to go with a different turntable…Ī different turntable or cartridge will be hit-or-miss. I actually had to buy a Rotel phono equalizer many years ago to get my turntable to work with my Harman Kardon preamp (the latter didn’t have a phono input).ĭo you still have that setup? If so, you can connect the output of the Harmon Kardon to the Beringer interface with the interface switched to “line”. I had been using the phono preamp built-into an old stereo receiver, into the line-inputs on regular soundcard on a tower computer, but the receiver died. Or if it doesn’t actually sound bad maybe you can just ignore it. There are some other possible solutions like a separate phono preamp, and there are line-level attenuators if that signal is too hot. (There are lots of higher-end USB audio interfaces with recording level controls, but most of them have pro microphone inputs and no phono inputs, so you’d need a separate phono preamp.)
…I only occasionally digitize records but I recently bought the ART USB Phono Plus and I chose it because it has an analog recording level knob. Headphone-out will also work into line-in (with the correct adapter cables) and the headphone output always has a volume control. If you have a stereo that works with the turntable you can use the “Tape-Out” (or Record Out") with the Behringer switched to “line”.
And some phono cartridges have higher output than others so it might be OK with a different turntable/cartridge.ĭo you have a “regular old” turntable without a built-in preamp? …If you have another preamp and the Beringer is switched to “phono” you’d be going through two preamps and it will be way-way too loud and very badly distorted. There is no “hard limit” like with digital. I’ve already digitized to MP3 several vinyls.