My friend you think I am talking about the Rega Cartridge?
You had better go back and read my posts and pay attention and then don't regurgitate what I've said and try and take the credit.
When I talk about a high resolution vinyl playback chain, I never said mine was.
Go back and read carefully.
I stated my friend's system, and so I am not bragging about how good my cartridge is or how much gold it contains.
There's lots of gold in them thar Siltech cables of his also, and if we are talking dollars to donuts his interconnect and speaker wires alone cost more than your system.
I repeat, I am not talking about my set up.Never bragged about my system.
You, however, seem to feel that my system can't give me any resolution, and that only you have found the "secret" recipe for success.
So I will have to go on the defensive.
Well, the secret isn't so much in the components as it is in the context of how those components are implimented.
Nowhere in your posts have I seen reference to what type of room treatment that you use, what type of power cords you use,if you use dedicated lines,balanced power,power conditioning etc.
I do.
If we need to get into a P fight about spending money on gear,my focus shifted away from mega buck components and into the realm of power and room conditioning.
My power cords cost over ten grand , if that impresses you.It doesn't impress me.
If I could have gotten the same results and spent less, believe me I would have.
My friend with the mega buck system didn't just call it a day when he bought the components.He spent large on power products.
He showed me the way.This was new territory for me 8 years ago.Before this all I focused on was speakers, amps, cd players and turntables, sound familiar?
I couldn't achieve his level of resolution because I didn't have the bucks to buy the gear that he has.
But I could afford the ancilliaries that so far you either have neglected to mention or just plain neglect when it comes to your search for the truth.
High resolution systems don't need the most expensive coil on the block to be high resolution system.
And I might add that you perhaps have never heard how good your system is if you neglect the power and the room.
In other words you only think you are nailing it.
You are therefore spot on when you state that you only get it right with a few recordings and on a few days.
It's because you are compromising the gear you have,and crippling it if you aren't doing any upgrading in the power cord, room or even fuse department.
The best MC you can buy isn't giving you what it's really capable of , no matter how much you fool with it.
What phono stage are you using?Do you have ablity to dial in the capacitance and load the cartridge for optimum performance?
I can do that with my Steelhead, even though I don't because I use a MM.
And don't slight a MM, they have virtues of their own, go read about them.No hot rising top end,as some coils have.
I"ll have to read up about your cartridge, but just for a reality check,all coils and cartridges have a sound and impart a sound to the music.
Again, they are not neutral, nothing is.
And when it comes to cartridges you can only like or dislike what they do to a recording.
It's just personal preference.
There's no clear cut winner.
Some are better than others, but so far I've never read about the ideal cartridge yet.
It's all about tradeoffs.
If you tweak your cartridge/system and tailor it's sound to suit what YOU think is a decent recording, (and judging from the recordings you state as reference,you haven't heard much), you are making a mistake that a novice makes.
Years ago when I started out and before you ever came upon this hobby, people only had analog as a source.
For most of us we bought Linn Lp12 TT, or after that I bought the Oracle and fitted it with an ET Two linear tracking air bearing arm and back then a nice Dynavector Ruby coil.
Then along came digital, and we (myself and my friends)spent a lot of time trying to make it sound as pleasant as when we spun vinyl.
But it didn't.So we started to re-configure our systems and in so doing, lost the magic that we had.
In the early years , getting both mediums to sound as good as the other was impossible.
Getting one to sound good, ruined the other.
You almost needed two systems.
So for most of us , vinyl still ruled and the perfect sound wasn't what they said it was.
Today things are different.Digital has gotten very good.
My friend and I both prefer his SME system, but the full blown Scarlatti isn't too shabby either, and in some areas outperforms the vinyl.
No, I am not talking about the absence of snaps and crackles.
He hardly has any and I hardly have any.
If people talk about the inferior sound of vinyl and the noise, then they haven't listened to a proper set up.
And I can get that with my set up, and using the Planar 9, the Exact 2 cartridge and the Manley Steel head phono.
I have no more noise than my friend has, whose cartridge alone is worth more than my entire vinyl set up as mentioned.
So the point is,your cartridge, or anybody's isn't perfect.
There's no perfect vinyl or digital set up, mine, yours or my friends,that is absolutely true to the recording.
Everyone of them is colouring the sound, no matter what you think or how perfect you think you have it.
The hard cruel fact is you are no closer to the truth than any of the rest of us.Perhaps further from it if you seek to compromise your system to only a select few frequencies and recordings, which your list illustrate are mostly studio created altered reality type recordings.
I am closer now than I was before, thanks to my friend.
He has shown me that no matter how good or expensive the gear is, it can be compromised if you don't sweat the details.
I can easily tell on my system as I can on his, the studio gimmicks on most of todays recordings, that are absent on the old jazz mono recordings from the late 50's early 60's.
Which tells me I am going in the right direction.Closer to reality not further from it.
The lines are cleanly drawn betwen the two, and I ,unlike you, do not wish to alter the reality of those recordings.
I want to hear differences, and I have a system that can do this, (more now than it did before), the same as my friends expensive system does.Score one for the cheap little MM.
My friend IS closer than I am, and you are somewhere in between,and unlike you I won't say your system is lacking anything although you think mine is lacking. I will say that you perhaps have some decent gear, but may lack a bit of experience as to how to get the most out of it.
The lesson I've learned thru the decades in this hobby is that there is no substitute for the truth, and that if the truth means hearing the tape hiss from a recording because it's on the recording, then that's better than hidding it.
Because to hide the tape hiss or try to make a sonic bandaid and cover it up somehow with euphonic colourations, isn't striving for the truth.
That's running away from it.
If you are missing the hiss, then what else are you missing?
My guess is the decay and trail of the music, especially on cymbals.
If hiss is on the recording but yoiur system isn't capable of retrieving it or you've done something to hide it because you find it detracts from the music, you've also just lost some of the music.You've lost detail.The hiss is a detail,and take it away you take away subtle decay and any other frequencies that ride in the frequencies of the hiss you find so offensive.
Point- it's not just hiss you are removing.
Or, if you aren't hearing the hiss thru your system(when it's there on someonelse's)you aren't hearing other parts of the music either.
And going back to preaching again, when mediocrity becomes the norm and something to adulate,then all the stuff that is truly good has no importance.
When you allow the slow learners to advance with the smart ones, you aren't doing either any favours.
If no one fails,it rewards the slackers and does nothing to encourage them or those who excelled to excell any further.
The playing field eventually is levelled and the score is average at best.
In other words,more in the lower middle, few or none at the top.
When you kill off the top audio gear and find nothing but fault because it is so good at revealing the truth and distinguishing between good and bad, you breed mediocrity.
It's evident,some don't want this type of brutal reality.
They would rather tinker with it, and try to render all recordings to sound nice than live with the reality that no two recordings will ever sound the same, nor should they.
Some are just poorly recorded.But that doesn't mean that they aren't fun to listen to.
If you like the music you'll like the flaws,and learn to appreciate the better recordings because you have a system that can do that.Not a system that makes everything sound the same, or a system that was voiced around one type of medium(vinyl/digital).
Vertigo has at times in his posts taken my statements out of context and twisted them around to make it appear that my ideas were his ideas all along, which of course they aren't.
I never once stated my aim was to strive for a system where the flaws are masked.And I've stated my system is able to distinguish between good and poorly recorded material.
I've assembled a system that is resolving and not fatiguing, and it sounds good all the time and on all music, good recordings or bad.It tells the truth.It doesn't hide from it.Or try to alter it and make it all sound the same.
I've stated all along I revel in the distinction between good bad and poor recordings, and strive for a system that has the resolution and detail to make this possible.How did Vertigo not get this?Why did he distort my statements?
How did he come to the conclusions that he did?
How could he know how good my system is, let alone my friend's, and is he really that dillusional to think that he has a system that has all the answers?
If he hasn't adressed room issues and power treatment I am certain he isn't even close yet to where his gear could take him.
My friend will tell you, he hasn't even gotten there yet.
I want the truth, Vertigo wants to colour it to his liking, both in his music reproduction system and in his posts.
