My digital front end outdoes my analog.....

You are comparing a great digital player to a very average analog rig (the YS Audio Concerto excepted.) So it's apples to oranges. With all due respect, the Rabco SL8E was easily outclassed by the best pivoting arms of its own era. The cartridge is a hi-output, moving iron device hardly in the same league as your MF player, and God-knows what kind of ancient tonearm cable is coming out of your Thorens, which is no doubt badly in need of a new idler wheel to keep wow and flutter within bounds.

You didn't say how many LPs are in your collection, but if they number 1000 or more, you could discover a whole new world of listening magic with a new analog rig (including a new record cleaning machine) for the same $6500 you paid for the MF Trivista SACD.

Of course, then you'd be jones-ing for a new Meitner or Wadia. It just never ends. . . . . . . .

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ET, sorry, I guess I was thinking you had a 124. Anyway, here's what I'd recommend:

1.) First, check the capacitance spec. for your cartridge and make sure you have it correct by adding the default YS capacitance to the cable capacitance and then adding additional capacitance to the phono preamp if necessary to achieve the specified capacitance for that cartridge. (This is very important for MM carts., and I think it applies to moving iron as well -- double check. It does not apply to MC carts.) If you want to keep the Rabco and TT, you might want to consider some new improved phono cables for the Rabco. Also, you'll get better bass (with that light platter) if you replace the springs with sorbothane pucks or domes (which is what they would have used in the first place if sorbothane had been available.)

2.) Keep the cartridge and sell the arm/TT together. I suspect however that your negative experience w/ MC cart. had to do with the (possibly incorrect) selection of the MC cartridge itself and/or its setup (i.e. proper cartridge loading -- you absolutely can't use 47K ohms with .2mv - .85mv MC cartridges!) Your YS with 54dB of gain has more than enough gain for any MC cartridge between .6mV and .85mV (like a van den Hul Frog for instance) But you'd have to have YS install the proper loading since the Concerto apparently doesn't provide for user adjustments.

If you want to try a quick fix (for the bass and image) lose the springs and replace them w/ sorbothane. And if you don't have one, get a good record weight to add mass to the platter and couple the record to it better. I'll bet those two things alone would make a big difference.

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ET, according to cartridgedb.com, your Grado puts out 5.0mV which means you would only need around 22dB of gain to blow the roof off. So your figures are off somewhere. As I said above, 54-62 dB gain is for low-to-medium output MC cartidges (0.25 to 0.85 mV)

If you really are running your Grado through 54dB of gain, my guess is that you are overdriving your Concerto (to clipping!) which may be why you find the sound less than thrilling.

I think your Concerto would be perfect for a MC cartridge just as it is (with proper input loading installed to match your MC cartridge.)

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Doug, thanks for playing the "heavy" this time ;-)

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Analog is an imperfect approximation, but it's a real approximation, vulnerable, and messy -- just like life. Digital isn't real, it's an encryption (code) for something real. It's an approximation too, but it's an approximation of an approximation. It's clean, repeatable, precise and pristine -- not at all like real life, and you know it when you hear it. It's a little like the old Technicolor -- just a little TOO REAL to be real.

There's no point comparing the two. With analog you get "real" but "imperfect." With digital, you get "perfect" but "artificial."

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ET, don't take my word for it; just look up the MC vs. MM gain specifications for any preamp with a built-in MM/MC phono section, or any phono preamp that accomodates both MM and MC, and you will see what I'm talking about.

All the ones I can find specify around 34dB for cartridges with outputs of 2.0 mV or higher (MM), ~58dB for (MC) cartridges between 0.2mV-0.6mV, and 68dB for the really low output MC cartridges <0.2mV. FWIW

Chad 'n Shad, what I meant by "imperfect" with respect to analog is that when storing analog information, any damage to the storage medium (the groove, the tape) also damages the information itself.

With storage of binary code, that is not true. As long as you can read the binary info AT ALL, you will be able to digitally reconstruct a "perfect facsimile" of the original sound. However, the resulting sound wave that gets to your ear, did not originate from an analog source (a wiggly groove), rather it was "reconstructed" using a code that can at best only "approximate" the analog equivalent, albeit without any pops and scratches.

The example of the DNA molecule would make a brilliant argument, except that it is not a digital (binary) storage system, and like the record groove, is vulnerable to all kinds of degradation and damage, and consequently, so is the information it stores. When this "damage" happens, we call it a mutation. Essential for evolution, but probably not so good for music reproduction.

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