Elegal, any information lost or distorted the instant that little piece of rock
hits the vinyl (amazing in this age of uber-tech; isn't it?) cannot be retrieved
or restored further down the chain. That is the most important stage of the
whole process. Congrats on your new arm/cart.
Mapman, Zd and others: of course there will be differences heard. Any
change whatsoever to the playback chain will result in a difference in
sound; that is the nature of music and it's complexity and fragility. Wether
that change is judged to be significant by a particular listener or wether it is
even audible to a particular listener is a different matter altogether. We
don't all have the same hearing acuity, nor are we all subject to the
inevitable biases, influences and expectations to the same degree. We
keep coming back to the issue of what is verifiable by use of existing
technical testing means or by subjective listening when there will always be
disagreement between the adherents to one of the two differing
philosophical approaches to the question. The only answer, for anyone
who really wants the true answer, lies in the obvious: get to know the sound
of live music on a more intimate level; and not by just one concert
attendance a year or two. The more we listen to the sound of live the
easier it becomes, when judging electronic gear, to determine wether that
piece of gear gets you closer to that sound or not. The detractors will say:
too many variables, too much this or that, yada yada. Nonsense! It's really
the only way; otherwise we are just spinning our wheels with the argument.
