Recording from vinyl.

This has probably been done to death on other posts but here goes.
I have double LP of The Story of the Who, it has been played just three times since i first got it in the mid 70's. They were all made to tape and long since gone. I want to make a digital recording to put on my USB stick for use in my car. I will be making the recording on my Mac with Audacity. The actual connection from turntable to Mac is not that easy in that i have to get a USB to Phono adapter, thats on it's way.
I know that the recording may well sound bad as there will be all kinds of noise picked up, this can be cleaned in Audacity though i am not sure what the end results will be like. I have done this on a PC with excellent results.
What i would like the know is whats the best bit rate to use, i'm not worried about size of files as i will convert the files later to MP3 for ease of use.

 

Use 32bit float as you'll be manipulating the files to clean them up, then reduce them to 16 bit with dither once you're satisfied with the result.

I would sample at 44.1kHz as this gives you the option to burn to CD without necessitating any sample-rate-conversion. LP doesn't have anything above 20kHz except noise, so there's no point in sampling higher than 44.1kHz.

If you've already done this on a PC, then you should be familiar with the noise-reduction process. I've done a few myself, and have found it's best to treat lightly, as a little noise is better than the artefacts created by excessive noise reduction. Clicks are a lot easier to deal with.

S.