Ripping vinyl

I'd never ripped from vinyl and quite fancied having a go so that I could listen to my vinyl in the car. After a small amount of research and a short email conversation with Bob (morris minor) I purchased a USB device (Behringer U-Contro UCA202) for a little under £20.

We are a Mac household. My TT and Reflex M are in a different room from my iMac, so I'm limited by the availability of my wife's MacBook Pro. I installed the free Audacity software on the MacBook Pro, plugged in the Behringer by USB and after unplugging the Reflex from my amplifier I plugged it into the Behringer's inputs. The input volume from the Reflex was too high and I could find a way to reduce to reduce it in Audacity.

So, I posted for help on the Audacity forum and quickly learned that there is, apparently, no way to vary USB input volumes on a Mac. Damn! The guy I had the forum dialogue with was so keen to help he even picked up the phone to GSP and spoke to John Cadman. He came back to say that a solution exists for me if I trade in my Reflex M for an Accession, which has variable gain. John C may still be waiting for a call from an unknown Reflex M owner. Well John, it's me, but at present I can't possibly justify the cost of the upgrade.

I told Bob all about this and he kindly offered to lend me some in -10 dB line attenuators. These arrived and I tried them yesterday evening. Volume input was decreased, but probably a bit more than would be ideal. I have seen some -3 dB inline attenuators on eBay; I may try them.

To date I've only recorded one side of one LP. Maybe a selection of attenuators would be needed for albums recorded at different levels.

I don't know when I'll get a chance with the MacBook to record another LP, but on the first one I noted that one of the stereo channels was at a consistently lower level than the other. Is this likely to be how the album was recorded or is it indicative of a badly set up cartridge?

The cartridge is G1042. The difference between the channels isn't huge. I've not noticed it when listening.

The arm is a Rega RB1000.

tg wrote: You can't change the azimuth on that readily, but you might be able to balance it up by tweaking the bias.

You're scaring me, but I'll have a go when I've checked out another couple of albums to confirm it is so. I hate tinkering with setup.