The Marantz PMD661 is excellent - very, very close to the PMD671 but in a smaller more portable form factor. It records up to 24bit 96kHz. Only slight issue is that while it has a pair of RCA phonos for Line Out, it uses a 3.5mm jack for Line In, but easily solved with a good quality adaptor such as the Audioquest one. IIRC the PMD661 was very highly rated by Hifi Choice magazine. It’s now in MkIII form I believe and available to buy new. Also the Sony PCM-D100 is available to buy new. I would take either before any of the Tascams.
I use a Roland R-05 connected to the tape out of my pre-amp (a better option than connecting direct to a phono stage). All you need is a cable from the pre to the R-05.
It records to a memory card, I copy to PC and split the recording into separate tracks. (Although I believe the R-05 has onboard editing facility). I’m sure it does 24bit 96kHz but I’ve never used high res myself.
It’s not a current model, so only available second hand at bargain prices. (less than £100).
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When I buy a new LP I always make a backup digital copy using my Korg MR2. That can record in DSD and 24bit 192kHz. IIRC Richard prefers his Marantz, but I have always been happy with the recordings.
Don’t know about current availability but I’m sure a “well-known auction site” have them. The MR1 is possibly better, as it can record DSD at higher resolution, but I have never heard it.
No problems using it to backup LPs - I just connect it to my NAC552 tape input using a Chord cable. And voila - music from LP12/Radikal (and any other source such connected) can be recorded.
Makes great live recordings too (using my Rode microphone).
I have purchased a Furutech Stratos Alpha DAC recorder and will let you know how it works out. One advantage is that I can use my own front end to record hi def from a mellow valve based system, the other is I can use the phono amp in the Stratos for high gain MC when I use a Shelter 501 MC Mono cartridge to record my old Mono LPs.
Just about to download Audacity when I find it does not work with macOS 10.15 (Catalina). What do the members suggest instead?
Ah, OK, I’ve stuck at High Sierra for Audio as this seems to support everything. As they’re so cheap these days, it might be worthwhile just getting an old MAC just for Audio stuff. I do this with one of my mid 2012 MacBook Pros. Fitted with 16GB or RAM and a 1TB SSD it’s brilliant for most things.
The Stratos looks great. Let us know how it performs. Does it comes with any bundled software to work with OS Catalina?
Just says Mac plug and play, no mention of OS. What program to edit with? Logic looks complex and very expensive.
A quick search suggests ocenaudio as an alternative to audacity.
There is also a possible workaround for audacity you could try https://www.audacityteam.org/macos-10-15-catalina-is-not-yet-supported-by-audacity/
Could “Garage Band” be used? I’m pretty sure you can trim tracks and probably divide them too.
I use Audacity with MacOS Catalina. Works perfectly Ok for me, although I did do the bit as suggested above.
Thanks for the tip regarding the Roland R-05. I just found one online and ordered it, although a little over £100).
I have quite a number of 12" singles which are not widely available anywhere that I can find, so it’ll be perfect for ripping these as you’ve described 
I am afraid that I may have wasted my money on the Stratos. It plugs into the Mac, but doesn’t show anything on screen or in launch pad. I can select it on sound card however. I listened to a youtube tune over it, but can not record with it alone, need audacity or similar on computer, but Audacity says not for Catalina. Roon will not download onto Catalina either. I found an article about Catalina and professional recording that says Apple has done many things to prevent such (or at least without their software). I undid all its recommendations, iCloud, sound notifications, firewall, etc., but no dice. Garage band doesn’t work. The naim song storage program doesn’t recognise the hardware or do recording. I thought about downloading widows for Mac to see if it could accept audacity, but then I would have to download a driver for the Stratos. I think the only way I am going to get this done is to find an older Apple with plenty of power and storage, but not Catalina (any others I need to avoid?). Any suggestions?
Catalina is probably too new - the 3rd party applications haven’t properly caught up yet. Yes, you will need a recording application in order for it to work as a recording device.
Meanwhile, I think that having a Mac just for audio is a good idea. As I wrote earlier, I have a mid 2012 Mac just for audio use - I fitted a 1TB Samsung SSD and 16GB or RAM and running High Sierra it deals easily with audio tasks. Then just download Audacity, load any drivers you need for your Stratos, and you should be good to go.
May just do that, whether I purchase another Apple computer to do all this vinyl to digital recording depends on a few things, getting from Apple a reconditioned laptop that does not have Catalina already downloaded, also the following; does Audacity record from a high-definition digital output from analogue to digital converter, or does it need to be converted from analogue to digital in Audacity? Does Audacity store all your music or do you put in iTunes? If iTunes, does it store high definition recordings? What is the highest resolution recording that Audacity can manage?
I took the advice of someone above and ordered a Roland R-05 digital recorder. I paid just over £100 off the bay of plenty.
I’m currently recording at 44.1hz WAV all of my 12" single “extended mixes” onto it.
I then plug the Roland into my Mac and copy the files over.
Once I’ve finished, I plan to use DBPowerAmp to save/convert the files as FLAC lossless and tag them all into one album.
You can use Audacity to either record or to edit. To record you should use a good quality USB or Firewire ADC/DAC interface such as the Apogee or similar. I use Audacity with 24bit 96kHz files that I have recorded, and it may also do 24/192, but I’m not sure about DSD.
When you have files in a folder it’s best to use a metadata editing program to ensure everything is tagged properly and you have album artwork. I store the recorded albums in a couple of places; they can be played on one of my DAPs, or I put them on a hard drive on my Core to play and serve locally, you can even just put on a USB stick and plug into something like the Naim DAC and play directly from there.
@Rensselaer I use the Sony PCMD100 Richard mentions for a number of applications, including live/field recordings and digitising LPs and tapes. It records in a number of formats up to 24-bit/192 kHz and DSD (Direct Stream Digital) with 2.8 MHz resolution.
I have purchased an expensive analogue to digital device with headphone amps, phono amp for MM and MC (the latter so that I can use my Shelter MC mono cartridge to record my mono LPs in 24/192 as well). The device from ADL called Stratos is sold by Furutech in UK, does conversion in either direction (can listen to high def digital through its DAC with headphones) but doesn’t record, I need a program on the computer that can do that, another to store the songs in 24/192 on the computer so that I can copy those of a theme onto memory sticks to play on the naim systems. I need to know what programs to buy to do this, I also need to find a small (size) Apple computer with i5 multicore and graphics with enough memory to hold loads of uncompressed music that doesn’t have Catalina already loaded in order to finish this project that has cost me £thousands so far and may cost £thousands more so I am on the verge of cutting my loses unless I see something here that spells it out nicely for an old mind.
According to the info I have read online, the Stratos will indeed allow you to record via a computer as it has a 2 way USB and an ADC onboard. You just need to install the driver to allow it to work and also have whatever software you’re going to use to undertake the recording. These do of course require an operating system that is compatible…
So the issue here is really that your computer with Catalina does not (yet?) support either the Stratos or any appropriate software. I would either look to get some kind of a refund on the Stratos or keep it and get yourself a computer with OS that will work with it, as well as run Audacity. A good condition secondhand MacBook Pro Post Mid 2012 is ideal here and available cheap - last one I bought was around £250 online. I then swapped out the HDD for an SSD and upped the RAM - both very straightforward jobs that are documented in detail online. Or you can pay extra for a refurbished machine where this has already been done for you. I would update the OS as far as High Sierra or maybe Mojave, but no further.
Thank you for that Richard. I don’t know the differences in memory and not sure of how to get a used computer on line safely except through Apple, but what storage program should I download to take the hi-def 24/192 recordings from Audacity and store them on the hard drive in that state intact, so that I can shop from it for songs of similar themes to record onto memory sticks for playback in 24/192 on the naim? And not just once, but as often and in as many combinations as I choose?