Originally Posted by Uncle Erik
Also, have you considered just listening to vinyl? I planned to do a lot of needledrops when I got into vinyl, and I've done a few, but get the most pleasure from just spinning vinyl. I know that's not practical for portable use, but give it a try at home instead of digital.
I totally agree that there is no substitute for listening directly to vinyl. I'd made digital copies of many albums in my vinyl collection but I've always listened to the original LP when I'm at home. The difference between the original and the copy is apparent in my system. Good enough for background music and playing through my car deck.
I've used Soundblaster USB sound card for digitization. The recording interface of the included software is very good; it allows me to break up the tracks on the fly without post processing, then I just edit in the track titles and burn to CD. Quality is quite acceptable using the Soundblaster. I've switched to M-Audio Audiophile sound card recently. The software that comes with it is very fat and runs slow, so I've been using Audacity to record instead. The recording quality is a bit better than the Soundblaster, but breaking up the track afterwards takes some effort.