my vinyl recordings sound bad

[kribee]

Hi all!
I am playing vinyl records on a Technics SL1210 MK2 / ortofon 2M cartridge / Art pre II preamp going into Focusrite Saffire LE line in. When playing the records, they sound fine.
However, when recording them with Audacity (mac OS X 10.eight), with levels correctly adjusted in preamp / audio interface / audacity, and audacity quality preferences :
44100 / 32 bit float / high quality everywhere, the result is baaaad. Not horrible, but definitely worse : slightly distorted, lack of bass, backgroung noise volume higher
than original... I have tried different settings in audacity "preferences", but it sounds about the same s...
Any idea what could be the problem ?
thanks!!

 

[audioman]

Hi, I have checked the specification of the Focusrite Saffire LE which you are using. It does not have an RIAA EQ option. You will need this in order to get the correct frequancy response. During the mastering of an LP the bass is reduced and the trebble increased. This is in order to help compensate for the non linier performance of the LP format. This standard RIAA had benn used for many years. There were a number of diffrent standards usef brfor that.

You will need a phono to line level preamp. This will include an RIAA EQ. This will then work as you would expect.

 

[Keirik]

The ART is a phono pre-amp though so the RIAA equalisation will already have been done, unless the OP is bypassing that for recording

 

[Teo]

Why do you want to transfer the music from vinyl to digital ?