WE'VE GOT THE PIECES  -  NOW LET'S PUT THEM TOGETHER.

5.   Positioning of equipment

Choosing the right equipment is the first step, now the second phase is placing the equipment in a comfortable position, yet remembering to keep the preamp and the turntable a reasonable distance from the computer .  I've got equipment setup in a opposite wall-to-wall installation.  This is shown in the left diagram below.  This basically means that I've got my computer on one side of the spare room, and the hi-fi cabinet on the other side.  This is to avoid any interference that a computer may still possibly generate.  The difference on positioning your equipment near your computer or away from it,  can result in your line in-put into your soundcard being -10  -  -15 db quieter.

Try setting up your equipment on a small cabinet.  This is because you'll most probably want to place your turntable on the top.  Small cabinets won't vibrate or sway as easily as tall ones may.  Place your amp about 10-15 cm (or more) above or below your turntable, depending on your set-up.  This could basically be putting one on the top shelf, and one on the bottom, like the right side diagram below.

6.   Connecting your hi-fi and computer together for duplication.

It is important before you start connecting anything, that all your hi-fi components and computer equipment is switched off. 

The first thing we need to do is to plug the RCA plugs of the turntable into the line input of your phono-pre-amp.    Next, you'll need to plug another RCA into the line-output of the pre-amp.  This lead will then have to be plugged into the Line-in of your computer soundcard.  This particular connection may vary, depending on what soundcard you have.

With the M Audio Delta 66, you'll need four leads.  Two leads are needed to go from you pre-amp to the Delta Soundcard, and then another two leads from the delta to whatever listening device you wish to listen through.  This could be a portable sound system or an amplifier in a hi-fi system.  You'll need two sets of RCA leads, and two sets of converter leads, from RCA female to 6.3mm mail.  See diagram below.

The connection for the Sound Blaster Cards is much simpler.   You'll need to get a "Y" converter lead.  At one end, you'll find two RCA males and one 3.5mm female at the other.   These leads generally come in one, three and six meter lengths.   When recording, you'll hear the audio through your computer speakers, rather then a external out put device like a portable radio or hi-fi system.

We have now set up your cabinet, connected all the components.  I hear you think,  "well, geeez; I hope it all works, now we need to throw the switch, pray to god and hope it all works."  NO NO, it's not that bad.  If you have done something wrong, you'll just get silence.  Provided all leads and plugs have been firmly connected, it's now the matter of performing some simple software configurations.  "ugh!!!!".  Again, this isn't torture.

It's now time to hit all the magic buttons and switch everything on.  The first thing you should do is to get a long play record.  This will give you some time to play around and get the right configuration.  Now the record is playing, double click on your "speaker" icon.  In most cases with windows, this should be in the lower right side of your screen.  Some windows versions may display it as a megaphone.

7.   Configuring the record and playback controls on Sound-Blaster Value Soundcards.

For computers that contain their own sound-card; in most cases Sound Blaster.

After clicking on the megaphone icon, a dialog box entitled "play control" should appear.  You may have more or less sliders, depending on how your windows program is set-up.  It is important to have the sliders set to the positions as above.

To configure your play control dialog box, to the same as the one above, first select the options menu then click on properties.  Just below where it shows "mixer device", should be two selector options, playback and recording.  Select playback.  Just below should be a white square with a number of ticked boxes and device names.  Scroll through and deselect all devices.  This is to reduce the size of the mixer panel, and make the use of it less confusing.  The next thing now is to tick the following boxes.

*Play Control
*Wave
*Midi
*CD Audio
*Line in

Now click on OK and you should be back at the "Play Control" Panel.  Now adjust the sliders to the same way, as the ones are above. Pay special attention to the level on which some of them are positioned.  Some of them are not quite all the way to the top.  This is to avoid distortion on playback.

Again click on the options menu and select properties. From the "Playback and Recording" selector, choose recording  and you should get a dialog box looking somewhat like this.

With this control panel, you can only select one input.  This is where you select "line in" as shown above.  Make sure that the slider is up, but not all the way to the top as this will distort.

At this point you should start hearing a sound signal from your turntable.  If this is the case, then you can skip the next section and read on from "Recording the Sound Signal".

If you hear any buzzing or humming, this may be caused by issues discussed earlier on in the LP2CD guide.