Are modern turntables reliable? Or is a vintage one preferred?
Have fun and good luck!
Btw, the Dual 1009, which is from 1964-66, maintains the speed REALLY well. I also have an Onkyo CP-1200A (got for free, someone put in the garbage), and the Dual was actually better at maintaining the speed!
You can download an app on your phone to measure the accuracy of your record player.
Many modern turntables, including cheap ones, support 78 rpm. (Quick search finds 11 new 78 rpm-supporting models at Best Buy in Canada, starting from $80. An $85 Sylvania that supports 78s can also digitize directly to USB storage.[1])
Did you mean 16 2/3 rpm records, which the Dual 1009 supports and most modern turntables don't?
[1]: https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/sylvania-src831-3-speed...
I can then repurpose it as a microphone for Zoom/MS Teams or whatever is used.
I have a NAD C715 that can record any input, and record it straight to MP3 at 160kbps, but I'd rather record at a higher bitrate. I've yet to find ANY receiver that can do that. It's still cool that they had that, where the FM signal is converted via ADC and straight to the CODEC for mp3 on the chip.
While you're doing the analog-to digital-conversion, I would suggest sticking with 24-bit 96Khz wav, and focus purely on maximizing the quality of the analog signal. i.e. dialing in levels and stuff. Each time you play a record it degrades a little bit, and it needs to be done at 1x speed, so you don't want to be futzing with compression settings.
Once you have the uncompressed wav files, you can experiment with different codecs and bitrates until you're happy. Figuring out the software to do that isn't difficult.
You could then also keep the uncompressed wav files around on the SD card in your drawer (or losslessly compress with something like flac). If a year later you realize you made poor compression choices, you can easily fix it. Maybe you eventually become an "expert" and decide you want to do some frequency filtering or something. If the SD card dies or gets lost, oh well! :-)
I've also managed to get a working Sony STR-6800SD receiver for $200 CAD. That should help in getting a good analog phono signal.
Yep, this is my preferred direction, and of course an offline-accessible though digital edition may be less prone to issues of wonky players, or warped physical media.
As for DVDs/Blu Ray, I only buy things like Planet Earth or other docs. Sure enough, just yesterday I tried playing Planet Earth II on UHD 4K Blu Ray on an Xbox Series X, albeit I still have a 1080p TV (bought used) and 1080p Receiver (bought used, Sony STR-DN1000 that I paid $50 for) and it was glitching. sigh Time to hit up Bit Torrent and download a ripped version of the Documentary that I already paid for. Argh.
Both Blu Ray and Vinyl are susceptible to one day not being playable. By ripping them into digital, we can hopefully keep the content playable well into the future.