@pani Just for the record (if you see what I did there) I was not making that claim. Just my means of reference, so as to avoid the 'fantasy' (as you put it) of live vs recorded.
Phono Stage - The great analog tragedy
In the world of analog playback, there is an interesting observation. There has been tremendous innovation in the field of
Turntable - Direct, Idler, Belt
Cartridge - MM, MC, MI
Tonearm - Gimbal, Unipivot, Linear Tracking
For all of the above designs we find some of the best reference components designed in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s. Most of the modern products are inspired from these extraordinary products of the past. But when it comes to phono stage, there is hardly any "reference component" from that era. They just standardized RIAA curve for sanity and left it. Manufacturers made large preamps and amps and allocated a puny 5% space for a small phono circuit even in their reference models, like a necessary evil. They didn’t bother about making it better.
The result? It came down to the modern designers post 2000 after vinyl resurgence to come up with serious phono stages for high end systems. Unfortunately they don’t have any past reference grade designs to copy or get inspired from. Effectively, just like DACs, reference phono stages is also an evolving concept, and we don’t have too many choices when we want a really good one which is high-res and natural sounding. Very few in the world have figured out a proper high end design so far. And most of the decent ones have been designed in the past couple of decades. The best of the breed are probably yet to come.
It is a tragedy that our legendary audio engineers from the golden era didn’t focus on the most sensitive and impactful component, "the phono stage"
Showing 6 responses by atmasphere
@pani I don't see these two statements squaring with each other. I'm not saying someone else might see them saying the same thing. But for me I want the system to sound as real as possible.
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@pani For reference I use an LP I recorded, which is a live recording. No compression or limiting of any kind was used in the tape machine or the LP mastering, which was done directly from the master tape. Since I was there I know how this recording (Canto General) is supposed to sound. So- not a fantasy. You just need to get out there and do it. |
The Question is at what time was the industry in the know Stereo was not too far into the future, as this might of been a brakes on influence. @pindac Stereo reel to reel was available as early as 1954 using 'staggered head' format. |
@pani I don't agree with your opening post or this one above. We designed our phono section in 1988 and it was a year before our line section was developed; then we introduced our MP-1 preamp, which was fully differential and balanced. By your premise that fully balanced phono section didn't exist. But it did. There were a good number of very good phono sections for high end audio in the 1980s. I think if you examine the Harmon Kardon Citation 1 (1958) you'll see a fairly elaborate phono section for the era. LOMC cartridges really didn't exist at the time so that phono section was for MM cartridges, and it was extremely competent. |