Who uses high end TT setup for vintage records ?

The other day I played a new LP and followed it with TIME FURTHER OUT ; an LP I have had since the mid 60s. The surfaces sounded quieter and the sound was comparable if not better. With new gear I hear things that I had no idea were there; I have a moderately large [3,000] LP collection and often play ones I have not heard in years. I am constantly surprised by the quality of some of the old records.

Hmm, I've always considered a good turntable setup to be agnostic in regards to source material vintage.

Whatever. My setup does great with all for modest cost. See my system page if interested.

Now off course most newer records do not sound like older records by nature in that modern production techniques are way different than those used in the past, digital versus analogue mastering being just one aspect of this. SInce they are usually different sounding by nature, each will have a preference regarding what sounds better, but that is largely a subjective judgement.

Vintage records represent a large % of the actual records out there, so I suspect that most TT setups including high end ones see way more "vintage" records than new ones.

In general, if you have a high end setup and vintage records do not sound right/good, then I'd say there is a problem there somewhere in that vintage recordings are where a lot of the vinyl magic exists.

A well designed analog front end will play all vinyl just fine.

End of thread.

:-)

Dear Pani,
I thing I almost got what your point is all about.
Viridian explains in his last post that is a matching or a flavor missing link. When I've had an all Goldmund set-up, the same issues about very selective recording quality makes me reject most of my favourite LPs. Whenever this particular behaviour explained as recording nasties that stripped - exposed by the speed related characteristics of the components, I usually disregard the circuit as been incorrect and unsuccessful to perform a believable recreation of the event. The commonly misleading artifact (that this is the essential studio reference monitoring necessity and the required absoluteness) derives from a vulgar arrogance that many manufacturers earned by the amount of investment in regular registration of press advertising and promotional tricks like new and exotic materials from another planet and of course the curves in every embodyment. The corruption comes naturally as the money flows. The soul of the performance that is capable from an Altec speaker (the std studio monitor of the 70's) is nowhere evident in recent modern speakers. The same with the complex overengineered circuits and artficial persona of many transistor based amps.
Regarding the analog source, the game is different. Shure there is much flavor to collect, but in no way can make the slicing job that the electronic components can do. I believe that the current production arm/cart of our times have lost a homogenity and get into speed and micro detail in a not insulting way. OK maybe the musical flow is not the same but at this part the matching of MC/tubes and MM/solid state comes into play.
All the things must paired with our personal criterion of what we are hunting for.
(ie): For my own taste, the Shindo Latour speaker is one of the best ever made and the Shindo TT/arm/cart is one of the worst that I ever heard.
We can blame the industry for easy money and lack of research where it counts, but in the field of our own personal gusto, there are many things to explore. A misconception about "musical" components need not to applied here. There is a world of difference between the stethoscope ability of a Lowther PM5A and the still life presented by the surgical sterile collection of fractured cohesion details that I'm hearing on some modern speakers paired with some modern amps. The question is about our ability to find the good examples of the past and present industry. The worst scenario is when some new manufactures try unsuccessfully to imitate the past (ie: Aspara, Tonian, Ocellia,) The desirable openness never comes but the harmonics lost their connection instead in the proccess if you try to redirect for more air, ambient and inner resolution. But enough with my own preferences. Some songs of interest on this theme are :
"TNK" (801) -Live-
"Anthem" (Deep Purple) -The Book of Taliesyn-
"Good night ladies" (Lou Reed) -Transformer-
"Search and destroy" (Iggy Pop) -Raw Power-
"Freedom" (Jimi Hendrix) -The cry of love-
There is indeed a challenge to find the right set-up for them which can manage to release their feeling and keep their soul intact but underexposed.

No, Pani. This is not a tonearm issue for sure, but mostly related with speakers and electronics ... and (in some very rare cases) to a lesser degree on some unacceptably draft made IC and speaker cables. (I am perfectly happy that I've discovered the 3T series of VDH).