Nest Theater Part Twenty One ~ Final Vinyl 17Jun22

Again as reported in the Compare Tracks entry, going Back To Vinyl has not been dialed in yet. For my next pass at adding some needed EQ to the vinyl playback path, I abandoned the analog solutions (too expensive or too lame) and chose to connect my phono pre-amp out to an A2D converter then to the miniDSP DDRC-22D to use it's EQ/corrections just as I do for the digital paths. Speaker and room corrections are made downstream and assume inbound signals are flat. To implement this I could only find a cheap ($17) A>D with 48KHz/16it sampling, or something whacky expensive. Plus, unfortunately, to get the digital output of the A>D  into the DDRC-22D I need to convert it to an AES connector (all other inputs on the DDRC-22D are already used); that converter box will run me ~$120 from Hosa! I am very pleased with my current miniDSP box with Dirac Live room correction in the digital domain and bringing the vinyl path into it too will be relatively easy and allow equivalent controls and corrections as for the FLAC streamer and YouTube sources.

I used REW to measure the NestT frequency response with Hosa converter and Musou A>D installed by sending analog frequency sweeps to the ADC. I measured this new "vinyl" audio frequency response SPL twice: with Dirac Live defeated and with Dirac Live active. I also show a comparative sweep from the digital realm with Dirac enabled too.  Not unexpectedly the vinyl path now measures out similarly to the digital paths with some notable exceptions. The low end of the A2D cannot cut it and again at the high end it falls short but at least Dirac compensates some.

I also listened to several albums to personally judge sonic fidelity & quality... it is vastly improved. It may not be an audiophile vinyl setup because I do adulterate the signal with DSP, but it does sound good. Given the objective measures, subjective listening and and my sense of use models and convenience, this scheme is the "final vinyl" audio path ~ with the possible exception of an ongoing search for a better ADC which might represent the vinyl more purely. Here's the final NestT connection diagram.