I notice your comments "Extreme articulation. Immense detailed reproduction. Every hit of the triangle is articulated." What I did not notice is anything about how you readjusted VTA for the increased record height.
Air of course isn't about to be damping anything. Playing a record, there's a lot to be damped. First and foremost, vibrations put straight into the vinyl by the stylus knocking back and forth as its being drug along the groove. Oh and did you know, that groove, its created by a signal that's had the higher frequencies amplified by as much as 20 dB? While the bass has been turned down by about the same 20 dB. Its true. Its called RIAA equalization.
So the signal put out by the cartridge, its never just the music from the groove. Its always the music signal plus whatever else is causing the stylus to move around. A lot of which as previously explained is generated by the stylus against the record itself.
If you like the way that sounds, great. Rest assured you are not alone. You might however want to go back and listen a lot more closely. Lots of guys get thrown off by the initial high frequency attack phase of a sound, calling this detail. Or even "extreme articulation, immense detail" as it were. Forgetting that detail isn't just the initial attack, but includes the subsequent fundamental, harmonic development, and decay- all of which must be in balance.
When they are, funny thing, nobody ever calls it "detail". Nobody listening to a real live person singing, or even just talking, ever said, "WOW such extreme articulation!"
So the comment itself is a clue to look deeper. There's more going on here than it seems. Of that you can be sure.
Air of course isn't about to be damping anything. Playing a record, there's a lot to be damped. First and foremost, vibrations put straight into the vinyl by the stylus knocking back and forth as its being drug along the groove. Oh and did you know, that groove, its created by a signal that's had the higher frequencies amplified by as much as 20 dB? While the bass has been turned down by about the same 20 dB. Its true. Its called RIAA equalization.
So the signal put out by the cartridge, its never just the music from the groove. Its always the music signal plus whatever else is causing the stylus to move around. A lot of which as previously explained is generated by the stylus against the record itself.
If you like the way that sounds, great. Rest assured you are not alone. You might however want to go back and listen a lot more closely. Lots of guys get thrown off by the initial high frequency attack phase of a sound, calling this detail. Or even "extreme articulation, immense detail" as it were. Forgetting that detail isn't just the initial attack, but includes the subsequent fundamental, harmonic development, and decay- all of which must be in balance.
When they are, funny thing, nobody ever calls it "detail". Nobody listening to a real live person singing, or even just talking, ever said, "WOW such extreme articulation!"
So the comment itself is a clue to look deeper. There's more going on here than it seems. Of that you can be sure.