A phono preamp with equalization selector


Hi all,

what do you think about the record equalization selector? I have several Deutsche Grammophon records from the '70. A friend noticed me they should be played with Teldec equalization plus inverted polarity, features that my phono preamp doesn't have. I know this is typical issue if you have old records (60-70s and before). What do you think? Do you agree? If so, which machine may you suggest me?

Thanks!

R

renatocomes

Look up the Harmon Kardon Festival monaural receiver. That’s what my parents had as of the early 50s, even predates the unit shown above. As I mentioned, it provided a choice of EQ curves including RIAA, Columbia, Decca, and maybe one other. I’m guessing that this is because the industry was just settling on RIAA during the period 1948-55(?). I do recall fiddling with the EQ in order to hear the differences. So maybe if you own very early production mono LPs, there might be a marginal benefit; the different EQs did not seem to make much difference to tonal balance, to my pre-teen ears.

Here is the HK Festival monaural tube tuner from early 1950s.  My memory of its built in equalization curves was faulty; the photos show "Eur", "RIAA", and "LP", not Columbia or Decca.  I wonder what were the differences between Eur or LP vs RIAA.

 

@elliottbnewcombjr Nice piece! Take another look at that front panel.

The EQ curves were very much standard by then. 'NAB' is a tape equalization. RIAA and the 'RCA Orthophonic' curves were pretty much the same thing; RIAA being for stereo. AES and LP were two alternate mono-only curves and the '78' curve was an approximation of the most common 78 curves of which there were quite a few.