Is RIAA equalisation enough for Phono Stages?


This question was bought up in the latest HiFi+. In particular, the editors report back from the Dem he put on at the Rocky Montain show. To summarise the argument, he says that even after all companies signed up to use RIAA in the 70's I believe, in fact they did'nt. The poor results from DGG in particular, with screetchy, painful treble, is all due to this. Played with the proper correction, they are transformed.
Now a number of stages, both cheap and expensive, provide alternative equalisation, but not all, including many expensive ones. I believe Graham Slee at the cheaper end, EAR, Manley Steelhead, Zanden, all do, for example. Should it be a more important considerration in choosing a stage? Looking at discussions on this site for example, it does not seem to come up much.
david12
interesting question. FYI, very few offer this option, far fewer than you suggest. In fact the EAR and Manley don't. The Graham Slee Jazz Club model, Zanden and FM acoustics are the only ones that come to mind.
It's called an equalizer.

People who distain equalizers conveniently forget the RIAA process.

As I have commented before, what vinyl really needs is dynamic equalization, similar to Dolby for mag tape, and actually developed several decades ago by DBX. It not only made vinyl as quiet as CDs, but dramaticly improved cartridge performance by always having the signal near the optimum level. CDs, and corporate greed on the part of DBX who, unlike Dolby labs, would not allow other hardware manufacturers to use their patents, killed it.
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