@lewm,
"The audio establishment sold us the idea that headshells were inherently unstable mounted at the end of an arm wand, so now we’ve got a lot of expensive tonearms with fixed headshells. Around the same time they sold us the idea that bass and treble controls and loudness controls were mucking up the sound quality of our music, so they’ve been deleted. Rightly or wrongly these “innovations” that were near to universally adopted have certainly reduced the cost of manufacture, while prices have gone skyward."
Same thing happening with phones and chargers - its green, and it’s good for the planet etc.
Similar thing happened in the 1990s when the loudspeaker manufacturers jumped on the MDF bandwagon.
As usual it’s nothing more or less than about reducing manufacturing costs and maximising profits.
The tricky bit is selling this reduction of choice/lack of freedom to the customer.
This is where the clever marketing comes in.
Some of the best arms ever built had removeable headshells.
"The audio establishment sold us the idea that headshells were inherently unstable mounted at the end of an arm wand, so now we’ve got a lot of expensive tonearms with fixed headshells. Around the same time they sold us the idea that bass and treble controls and loudness controls were mucking up the sound quality of our music, so they’ve been deleted. Rightly or wrongly these “innovations” that were near to universally adopted have certainly reduced the cost of manufacture, while prices have gone skyward."
Same thing happening with phones and chargers - its green, and it’s good for the planet etc.
Similar thing happened in the 1990s when the loudspeaker manufacturers jumped on the MDF bandwagon.
As usual it’s nothing more or less than about reducing manufacturing costs and maximising profits.
The tricky bit is selling this reduction of choice/lack of freedom to the customer.
This is where the clever marketing comes in.
Some of the best arms ever built had removeable headshells.