Line vs. Mic on USB connect

[davelr]

I've recently restarted digitizing vinyl albums. I use a Thorens TD-160 plugged into an ART USB Phono Plus preamp/ADC unit. Unfortunately after capturing a few albums, the right channel on the ART unit died. This was a little surprising, but I'd had the unit for about 10 years.

I ordered a new ART unit as I'd always had good luck with it and it had features that I wanted.

When using the older unit, the input (this is on a Win 7 system) always presented as "microphone on USB" and the "set digital gain" button always set the slider to 3.

When using the new unit, however, the input presents as "line on USB" and the "set digital gain" button sets the slider to 100. I've experimented around in "sound" in Windows, but can't get the unit to present as "microphone" as the old unit did. I'm assuming that this has something to do with how the new ART unit is presenting itself to the USB interface on the PC and that there isn't anything I can do about it.

My question is do you think that given the way the ART is recognized in Windows the "digital gain" being set to 100 on the slider is appropriate and I should just run it that way? As far as I can tell, the recording seems to work correctly and I can set appropriate levels using the gain knob on the ART.

Thanks

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

Hi,

Interesting, I'm not sure why it's changed.

I would trust the setting set by VinylStudio when you click that button.  We ask Windows what setting to use and then that's what we set the slider to.

[davelr]

Have done about a half dozen albums and so far everything is fine with the way the unit is working. If I can figure out anything about why the difference I'll post back.

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

OK, thank you.