Sound Blaster X-Fi USB

I'm not going to go into much detail on my early efforts. Using the AT LP120USB for most typical vinyl pressings I'd set the input gain on 0.2, drop the needle and let it run into Audacity. Then get rid of the needle drop noise and extra silence at the end of each LP side. Label the tracks (quicker with ctrl-b rather than the menu). Pull down "Export Multiple" from the file menu and create Microsoft WAV files in a Media Center  library folder. Burn to CD and done. One useful tip is that double clicking on the input mic icon allows you to set the input gain exactly. The DG Mahler Third (Bernstein) required dialing down to 0.13.

This LP exposed the limits on dynamic range I was trying to deal with. After some shopping I found Creative Labs X-Fi "USB Soundcard" at Amazon for $80. I recommend this heartily. I did the initial install with the Windows drivers (not the one from Creative) since some internet discussion kind of trashed the more complicated software from the manufacturer. This works, but you still need the onboard phono preamp on the LP120 which is something I'll want to get around later. The Soundblaster is probably worth the money for the headphone amp which comes with it, It just sounds better than the built-in on my Lenovo G780.

The real advantage shows up when you hook the line out of the turntable with the SoundBlaster. Remember to change the input to 24-bit at 96 kHz. Dial then input to 1.0 in Audacity. The results are quite nice. In addition, the X-Fi happens to include a headphone amp which is worth a listen. Clearly a vast improvement over the onboad one on the laptop.