Hi chaps and chapesses,

as the title suggest I am committing what would be regarded as audio sin by many and with good reason.

The main (audible) attraction of vinyl can be traced to its pure analogue signal path. In this realm most harmonic distortion within the signal is more than acceptable and often preferable, especially on some recordings. Nothing else quite captures the space and realism of recordings IMO.

So why then would I want to convert that signal into a digital one before reconverting it into analogue?

My reasons are two fold.

- Firstly I am a curious soul. I saw these turntables advertised with "USB out" for recording and such purposes a while ago and dismissed them for the reasons outlined above. They also appeared mainly on some relatively cheap equipment where the sound quality was not top of the list of requirements.

- Secondly I am short of inputs on my amplifier (1). I have a very good source selector switch which I use on my other system but using the optical out on a turntable I can actually send the signal through my DAC and straight into the amplifier without the need for another selector switch as the source can then be controlled from the DAC.


The turntable in question is a Pro-Ject Essential III Digital, a significant upgrade over the II and a decent offering in its own right regardless of the digital function. It has a decent MM phono stage built in and both the phono stage and digital/optical out can be bypassed to utilise a stand alone phono stage.


If the sound quality is desperately lacking compared to an analogue path I will revert to the phono stage and selector switch, but for a lot less than the cost of the switch I get the digital out option on the turntable compared to the price of the Pro-Ject Essential III (non digital).


Worth a try I reckon, anyway if anyone has any experience with this kind of thing or anything similar please chime in.


This is just a bit of fun with my second "budget" system and of course sound quality is still important, I'm fully aware it would undoubtedly sound at its best as a stand-alone turntable - phono stage - amplifier setup.


The digital out section is switchable between 48/96k, likely to be used in a Sonos/Receiver type setup but like I say, just a bit of fun to try.

At least I didn't give the bluetooth a second thought . . . .


Cheers,

Chris