Bandwith limited when ripping vinyl

[Soak]

Hello,

I come here because I have a big problem when ripping vinyles and I don't know what to do. Visibly I miss some bandwith when I try to record more than to 48 kHz.

My equiment

Turntable: Audio Technica AT-LP120-USBC
Cartridge: Audio Technica AT-95E (MM)
Phonoamp: I use the one built-in in the turntable with the Line output directly on my audio interface
Audio Interface: Steinberg UR22 (24 bit 192 kHz USB)
Audio Capturing: Steinberg Cubase AI Elements 7 (ASIO-Driver)

Some pictures

- To connect RCA output to Jack input on the audio interface (in the MIC/LINE inputs):



- Audio interface:



What I obtain with these settings (look from the audio interface picture):



Recorded at 96 kHz, only 44.1 or 48 kHz are present in the bandwith I think, because when I convert the file to 48 kHz, the full bandwith is here.

So here's my question: what do I need to do? Try to adjust the input gains on the audio interface or buy a new pre-amp like a Cambridge Audio 651P?
Thank you

[steve]

Visibly I miss some bandwith when I try to record more than to 48 kHz.

Where are you looking to see that?
Does it matter what it "looks" like? Surely the "sound" is the important thing
If you are having problems with 96 kHz recording, then why not use 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz? I doubt that you are able to hear sound above 20 kHz.

What is this? It means nothing without explanation.

[Soak]

Visibly I miss some bandwith when I try to record more than to 48 kHz.

Where are you looking to see that?
Does it matter what it "looks" like? Surely the "sound" is the important thing
If you are having problems with 96 kHz recording, then why not use 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz? I doubt that you are able to hear sound above 20 kHz.

What is this? It means nothing without explanation.

Yeah you're right I think the 24 bits it's the more important to have more details.

It's the graph in GoldWave when you play a file. I see some graphs using the full width in 96 kHz, sometimes not, from some rips on Internet. When I encode from 96 to 48 kHz, the full width of the graph is used.

Here is a rip from last Daft Punk vinyl in 24/96 :



You can see the graph have the full width, not as me with 96 kHz (seems like to have 48 kHz of the 96 in fact). But maybe it's not really a problem.

[steve]

Audacity has a "Plot Spectrum" feature: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/plot_spectrum.html
It may not be as pretty as the Goldwave image, but it is possibly more informative.

[Soak]

Audacity has a "Plot Spectrum" feature: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/plot_spectrum.html
It may not be as pretty as the Goldwave image, but it is possibly more informative.

Don't worry I use both softwares, Audacity for the normalisation I find it better for example. I don't really know what should I analyze on these graphs.

[Robert J. H.]

Vinyl hasn't such a large frequency spectrum--it is rather a myth.
I've learned this while analysing quadrophonic recordings. Most LP's produce frequencies up to 15 kHz, max 24 kHz.
CD-4 (quadro sound) needs a spectrum up to 45 kHz. This is achieved by letting cut the master at half speed.
For all other recordings, 48000 Hz sample rate should be fine.

[steve]

Audible sound is within the range 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz. This assumes "perfect" hearing for a person under 16. The ability to hear very high frequencies declines with age. For adults the upper frequency limit is usually around 16,000 Hz or less, and usually declines further as the person gets older.

Professional recording equipment is designed to handle frequencies in the range 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz as accurately as possible. This usually means that the extreme ends of their frequency range start from under 20 Hz and extend beyond 20,000 Hz, though they are usually limited so that the range does not extend too far beyond these limits.

The reason that the frequency range of professional gear is deliberately limited is because excessively high or low frequencies will damage fidelity within the audible range. Excessively low frequencies can cause unwanted mechanical vibration (for example in the tone arm of a record player) and produce unwanted heating effects (for example in speaker voice coils). Excessively high frequencies can cause intermodulation distortion that spills over into the audible range.

Ideally, and depending on the musical content, the spectrum of a high quality audio recording should show that the signal is present across the audible frequency range, without much below 20 Hz or above 20,000 Hz.

This is the spectrum of part of a rather good recording of Brahms Symphony No 4, 4th movement (Allegro energico e passionato). Note that there is little of interest below 20 Hz apart from a bit of rumble, and above 20,000 Hz there's virtually nothing. As is typical of symphony orchestra music, the signal is strong in the mid range (300 to 3000 Hz) with significant bass down to around 40 Hz and smoothly tailing off at the high end before it disappears at around 20,000 Hz.

brahms.png (38.99 KiB) Viewed 4330 times

[Soak]

Yep I read some things about that here: http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

So, this a for example the graph from a vinyl I recorded in 24/48:



I guess the rip is okay in this case.

Here the graph from the Daft Punk rip I posted below in the thread (24/96):



Yup it's really ridiculous. Just one thing I don't understand: why a 24/48 file show the range from 0 to 23 000 Hz and a 24/96 file show the range from 0 to 48 000 Hz?

[steve]

You may notice that the spectrum plot in my image has the horizontal scale set to "logarithmic". This is more like the way that ears hear. On a logarithmic scale, octaves are evenly spaced horizontally,

The maximum frequency that can be represented in PCM digital audio is half of the sample rate (known as the Nyquist frequency). So for 44100 Hz sample rate the maximum frequency range is 0 to 22050 Hz, for 48,000 Hz sample rate it is 0 to 24,000 Hz and for 96,000 Hz sample rate it is 0 to 48,000 Hz. In practice the upper limit is a little lower due to anti-alias filtering (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-aliasing_filter). At the low end the frequency is limited by analogue components (if it were possible for a loudspeaker to produce 0 Hz, you would feel a constant breeze flowing from it )

[Soak]

So, if I understand well, a CD quality is like the best we can find (16/44.1)? Because on the link I pasted below, they say 24 bits don't help in playback. Seriously? I'm shocked. Because I listened to some vinyles rips and even worst.. I bought some Studio Masters (on a french website which sell them - because I'm french, the equivalent for english people is HDTracks I presume), and the majority of people find the sound better in 24 bits. So, what the point about this, its it just psychological?

2nd question: Why the vinyl sound better? Or is it just psychological too?

Just for the fun, here's a comparison of a track I have both on vinyl and FLAC (bought on Internet). They have bot the same mastering because they have both the same Dynamic Range score of 13.

FLAC 16/44.1



WAV 24/48 vinyl rip



3rd question: What is your analyze from these two graph for a comparison, which sounds the better or there is no difference?

Thank you both to take some time to answer to my questions, I'm a newbie in this domain.