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78 rpm restorations home

I use an external USB Sound Blaster card for my transcriptions and a laptop computer. So shoot me!

Many people claim this is insufficient for any number of reasons and I've heard it all... However, keep in mind that modern sound card specifications are far superior to anything a 78RPM record (of any vintage) could ever hope to achieve as you may have observed in earlier pages. Some users prefer M-Audio sound cards whilst I continue to use a very standard Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 USB sound card.

My only recommendation is to go for an external USB sound card of one type or another, that way you can connect your phono-pre amp output to the input of the sound card with the shortest possible cable. This way, you can avoid picking up noise over badly shielded wires. Once the sound is digitised by the sound card it is essentially safe from picking up RF (radio frequency) and other types of inductive noise.

Laptop or Desktop?

So long as the computer exceeds the minimum requirements of the sound card and audio software as well as meeting your functionality requirements then there shouldn't be a problem when choosing either. In years gone by, desktop computers once provided more flexibility in hardware choices for storage space and sound cards. Now that the market is flooded with USB hard disk drives and USB sound cards this has become a decision of preference as many of the hardware limitations on laptops have disappeared.

I prefer a laptop because once a recording is digitised, I can disconnect from the audio equipment and continue the restoration process in another place at any time!
There is one quite important advantage of this choice - a laptop can be removed from the earth loop during 78rpm transcription by running it off the battery whereas a desktop cannot! This is obviously an advantage where hum inducing earth-loops due to poor equipment arrangements may be a problem.

Speakers or Headphones?

For restoration purposes I use a set of Roland RH-50 headphones purely because they were given to me and they do the job. If room and noise permits, nothing beats using a set of reference speakers in a quiet room. However, if you are like me and prefer to work here and there, then a good set of headphones will be more than acceptable and allow for such flexibility. Try to make sure they have a reasonably flat frequency response and good sensitivity as well as isolating you from external noises if you can't avoid them.