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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
piedpiper
753 posts
 
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.
eldartford
4,262 posts
 
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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piedpiper
753 posts
 
ELdartford,

It is not a matter of "conveniently forgetting about the RIAA process." In a high resolution system, additional equalization circuitry, or any other ancillary circuitry for that matter, will definitely represent a degradation. Whether whatever benefit is gained is worth that degradation is a matter of priorities. It seems to me that if one is concerned about the issue, having it built into the phono stage as an alternate routing to the RIAA standard circuit is far superior sonically to having additional EQ either built in or, worse yet, outboard, where it would necessitate another pair of interconnects. If you find yourself getting impatient with this sort of thinking, then by all means, forgo on the finer points of quality in deference to convenience and tonal control.

BTW, I have never found the noise on reel to reel or that of a quality vinyl playback system, assuming high quality records, to be worth the degradation of either DBX or Dolby.
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