Beautiful cartridges (aka Goldring G900IGC)

[Werner]

From most record shops.

I started with music in the early 80s. I bought LPs, and copied them straight to cassette, to prevent wear.

Now most of the albums I bought between 80 and 90 sound remarkably flat, lifeless, and dull. Could it be that the stores I frequented (stores which are not exactly in London or Manhattan) only got access to pressings off nearly-worn stampers? I do hope you know that in this era stampers often were pushed 1000s beyond their sell-by dates?

The point I want to make is that with LP there is no absolute reference disc. At least not one you can buy with any certainty.

 

[RobHolt]

I started with music in the early 80s. I bought LPs, and copied them straight to cassette, to prevent wear.

Now most of the albums I bought between 80 and 90 sound remarkably flat, lifeless, and dull. Could it be that the stores I frequented (stores which are not exactly in London or Manhattan) only got access to pressings off nearly-worn stampers? I do hope you know that in this era stampers often were pushed 1000s beyond their sell-by dates?

The point I want to make is that with LP there is no absolute reference disc. At least not one you can buy with any certainty.

I'm not disputing that, though I have many albums from that era that sounds perfectly fine. I'm simply saying that I'm afraid you are stuck with what is on that disc. An accurate cartridge should simply tell the truth.
If you contrive to give a cartridge a fixed character in order to make some discs sound better, you'll end up making others sound worse.
So do any correction you feel necessary further along the chain where you can actually exert some control.

What you do raise are some interesting spin-off questions though, such as why do people seem to give some, quite frankly, shitty sounding vinyl an easy ride while bemoaning the slightest of issues with digital playback.

 

[RobHolt]

It's hardly a discussion is it; you have stated your position and I have stated mine. You have stated that you don't agree with me and I have stated I don't agree with you. No amount of 'discussion' is likely to alter either of our viewpoints.

So develop it - i though that's what forums were all about?
Surely its about more than 'us' - if not we could just send email or PMs
When I suggested a discussion I was rather hoping it might prompt others to contribute.

 

[Tenson]

I've always found tone controls, bass mostly, useful. My listening rooms have always been quite small so placement of the speakers away from boundaries is not easy, and as a result bass is usually too high. The problem of course is room modes and a parametric EQ is preferable, but if that isn't available a general bass control lets the level be adjusted to seem more correct.

I've put a bass level control on the new Advantage bass speaker and set the frequency point to match where the speaker couples to boundaries or not. That way you can easily adjust for close to wall or free standing placement. Very useful IMO!

Ultimately I think most analog pre-amps should have a 2-band parametric EQ for the bass rather than a shelf. I guess it doesn't matter much now though because everything is going towards digital sources where proper corrective EQ will hopefully be implemented. We're in a transitional phase at the moment.