Rob is at heart an audiophile, and specifically a vinyl loving audiophile. His heart’s passion for the sound of vinyl playback combined with his head’s ability to design and engineer- (he has an advanced degree in electrochemistry and worked at Bell Communication Research -originally part of AT&T Bell Labs) led him to endeavor to be able to record the magic he heard in the grooves of his vinyl records into a digital format that let everyone hear those magical vinyl characteristics.
So in 2006 Rob released Pure Vinyl, a product he designed from scratch for the express purpose of recording and integrating vinyl with digital audio (http://www.channld.com/).
If you’ve been to any of the big audio shows you may have met Rob before. He gets out a lot and in fact this is his second visit with The SFAS. (Like many audiophile product manufacturers, I think he likes visiting the wine country when he’s here, or maybe it’s just us?)
Pure Vinyl is a component that can be added to Rob’s Pure Music software that allows a user to rip files from vinyl records into a high resolution format that captures and divides up the tracks on an album into their individual components as well as letting you do the usual adding of meta data, and pop and click removal. There may be other software products out there that do individual parts of what Rob’s software does, or that patch together individual programs to accomplish much of Pure Vinyl’s features, but when watching Rob demonstrate his software it was easy to see that Pure Vinyl is a product designed to include everything you’d want in one relatively easy to use package. One caveat- PC’s need not apply, the software works on Macs only.
I’ve been using Rob’s Pure Music software for a few years now with great success on a Mac mini with a solid state drive connected to a Synology server. Rob is incredibly accessible and helpful on a personal level as far as the use of his products is concerned. I actually contacted him before purchasing his Pure Music software (upgradeable to Pure Vinyl) because I had some questions about getting the best components for my music server that I’d be running his software on and I wanted to make sure the integration was going to be seamless. He recommended specific hard drives to go with my Synology server which I chose because the server lets me store my files and access them from a PC in one room and the Mac in another. Pure Music software integrates with iTunes, but uses iTunes only for the file handling, iTunes is not involved in any of the decoding and playback. Pure Music also overcomes iTunes limitations for file formats in that it lets you to play DSD and FLAC files after you manually mark them for notation through the Pure Music software so that iTunes can find the files and load them when you want them. Pure Music improves the sound quality of files it plays back vs. the sound quality of those same files played back through iTunes and the software has won multiple awards from multiple audiophile magazines and computer audio sites for its ability to do so. See the Channel D web site for all the accolades. You also need Pure Music in order to run Pure Vinyl, and you can buy Pure Vinyl directly with Pure Music included, or buy Pure Music first and add Pure Vinyl when you are ready to rip your LP’s. Both products are available for download with a 15 day free trial.
The SFAS Event!
So on Sunday May 28th, Rob Robinson came to Casa Lundin in Orinda (aka The Audiophile garage) to talk to a group of SFAS members about his Mac-based Channel D software product, Pure Vinyl. He also came armed with three different Channel D phono stages, one of which, the Seta Model L, Stereophile reviewer John Atkinson gushed over, saying among other things, “It’s an understatement to say that I was impressed by the Seta Model L used as a conventional RIAA preamplifier. It measured more like a piece of laboratory equipment than a typical high-end component, and sounded superb to boot.” To be clear, that “to boot” is in addition to, you do not need to boot up this phono stage even when you connect it to your computer.
The SETA+ phono preamplifier is available in natural anodized aluminum, or gorgeous red powder coat finish, as shown in the photo of Rob pointing at the component . Seta means “silk” in Italian.
One of the tasks of a phono stage is to untweak the signal that was originally tweaked to get all of the analog information in the grooves in the first place. When a musical track is recorded on a vinyl record the bass portion needs to be attenuated so the grooves aren’t overly wide, and the treble needs to be amplified so the clarity of the highs is retrievable and distinct from surface noise in the groove. To make all of this sound like what was originally played by the musicians, you need to reverse the process when you’ve retrieved the information from the groove via your phono cartridge. Therefore, a phono pre amplifier doesn’t just amplify the cartridge signal, it emphasizes the amplification of the bass signal and decreases the amplification of the high frequencies you’ve retrieved. Got that?
Your phono stage accomplishes this task with electronic components that are designed to follow the Standardized RIAA curve (you can look this up). Electronic components are naturally subject to the variances of their designers and manufacturers. Components values will also change over time as the components age and eventually wear out. These are some of the reasons phono stages can sound so remarkably different. It’s also why Rob Robinson’s phono stages comes with the ability to let you bypass the RIAA equalization and pass the unequalized signal to your computer when recording, instead they allow you to do the equalization much more precisely in the digital world, which is where your files will end up when you are recording them anyway.
Rob went over this information and some of the specific features that make his phono stages stand out from the competition. Most noteworthy to me was the bandwidth, which doesn’t stop at 20K Hz but goes out to 2,000,000 Hz on the Model H phono stage (for moving magnet cartridges), and up to an amazing 5,000,000 Hz on the SETA Model L (for low output moving coil cartridges).
This design feature greatly reduces intermodulation and harmonic distortion in the critical audio range, particularly in the treble region, resulting in unsurpassed ease of presentation, dynamics, clarity, imaging and neutrality. Ultra wide bandwidth also minimizes any disruption to the listening experience resulting from fast-risetime impulse noise (LP pops and clicks) because of Seta’s excellent transient tracking and immunity to signal overload. Seta also includes a low impedance rechargeable AGM battery power supply, sited in the same chassis as the circuitry for maximum performance. All Channel D phono stages feature balanced and unbalanced inputs and outputs, ultra low noise and distortion and ultra wide signal bandwidth; modern surface-mount-component multilayer construction and board-mounted connectors for the shortest possible signal path; ultra-low ESR polymer dielectric bypass capacitors; and hand-selected components including ultra precision 0.1 percent tolerance low noise metal film resistors and sputtered-metal-contact polypropylene capacitors for tight adherence to the standard phono RIAA curve: better than plus or minus 0.1 dB and better than plus or minus 0.02 dB channel match. All preamplifiers are individually tested and calibrated and include their own individual RIAA accuracy measurement graphs. Wow!
Before we started recording we listened to the SETA+ and got to hear the effects of some of that amazing bandwidth on a couple of LP’s Rob had brought along- Elvis is Back (Acoustic Sounds 45 RPM reissue) & a recording by Gary Louris – (Vagabonds LP.)
The SETA was inserted into Leslie’s front room system which this day consisted of the Davone Model Ray-S speakers ($8,600). Rogue Pharaoh integrated amp ($3,500). Anti-cable Level 3 reference speaker cables (approx. $300). High Fidelity Ultimate Reference Helix, Platinum Power cord ($12,900) plugged into the Rogue.
As good as Leslie’s system usually sounds; vinyl playback was morphed to an entirely higher level with the SETA+ in the system. Detail, micro and macro dynamics, soundstage and instrumentation placement all were vastly improved beyond what had been heard from vinyl playback with just the Rogues built in phono stage. This is not too surprising when you consider the cost of the SETA+ is nearly double the cost of the Rogue pre amp by itself and that the phono stage on the Rogue comes built in at that price. Still, the proof was in the listening, and with the SETA+ in the system, Leslie, who knows her system best, stated that she thought she needed to put the SETA+ into her system on a permanent basis.
All of the pre-event listening sounded spectacular, but it soon came time to get to the day’s main event: making a high resolution digital recording from a vinyl record.
For the source on the actual recording Rob chose Cat Stevens – Tea for the Tillerman (45 RPM Acoustic Sounds reissue).
After demonstrating the proper setting of the record levels it was time to begin. Rob was using Pure Vinyl 4 Recording, Editing and LP RIAA EQ software for Mac OS: $299 with along with a Lynx Hilo 192 kHz USB ADC/DAC that he’d provided ($2499 & also available with Thunderbolt instead of USB) and a Turntable Audio Interface Adapter: ($75 / pair from Channel D (for connecting the TT to the Lynx Hilo.)
The video output from the MacBook was patched through to a monitor that was easily viewable for all attending members with adequate eyesight. One of the cool parts about Rob’s Pure Vinyl software appeared on the monitor as the software processed the vinyl information, automatically sensing the space between grooves and displaying the information with Rob’s unique and patented “virtual vinyl” cue guide image feature: which displays a replica of a vinyl disc generated from the audio in the recording as if you were recording onto an actual vinyl record in your computer.