The International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archivists (IASA) recommends the use of a discrete (stand alone) Analogue to Digital converter (ADC) to create digital preservation copies of analogue audio originals.
It is easy to find inexpensive ADC units which claim to meet minimum IASA specifications for Sampling Rates (48-96 KHz) and Bit Depth (24 bit). It is much more difficult to find ADC units which meet all of the other specification areas such as Frequency Response / Dynamic Range / Total Harmonic Distortion etc. Unless one has thousands of dollars to spend (I don't).
I'd be grateful for any public/private reactions to either of these two questions:
Assuming the above sampling rate and bit depth specs,
1. Are there any stand alone ADCs in the Australian market for less than $500/$1000 which meet or come close to IASA's other specifications.
2. Would anyone care to rate the relative importance of these other specification areas.
You can see the IASA specs at: https://www.iasa-web.org/tc04/key-digital-principles
Cheers. jw
Email: chart@timorarchives.info
Replies
And there's the additional expense of expert regular checking and recalibrating of the components