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Who uses high end TT setup for vintage records ?

Many of us are into Vinyls because we listen to lots old vintage music along with the new ones. Digital sounded nasty with all those oldish recordings. Analog on the contrary is much more like music but as we move up the analog chain we start segregating vintage from modern recordings simply because our $$$ MC cartridge doesnt favour old records. It can sound noisy, lean, unforgiving. All that classic vintage warmth which is embedded in those old vinyls somehow do not get conveyed.

I always knew a lot of the turntables and cartridges are clearly voiced to favour a certain era of music/recordings. But it seems even tonearms have such favouritisms. Lot of these new age tonearms dont play old records with grace.

I am trying to meet members here who have successfully been able to use their high end TT/tonearm/cartridge combination to play any kind of music from any era with its desired grace, warmth and musicality. What combination did you arrive at ?

I understand one can always use a second tonearm/cartridge combination to play old records but that is not the point, cant we have a nice high end combination doing everything well ?
pani
stringreen's avatar
stringreen
6,475 posts
 
I am always taken back by the sound those older LP's have hidden in them. I found that better equipment doesn't emphasis those ticks, pops, and noises that lesser equipment seems to bring out, yet does bring out those audiphile traits that make us smile. And too....someone on these posts said that digital LP's are no good....I completely disagree. Some of my best sounding records were done digitally
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,861 posts
 
One nice thing about LPs from the 50s and early 60s is that they have an all-tube recording chain! The better your playback the more you get the benefit of that.

But I've got a lot of good LPs with a digital master tape as well. Most people don't realize that the biggest area of degradation between the digital master and the CD is the process of making the CD itself. If the LP is mastered from the master tape it stands a good chance of being better than the CD.
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,341 posts
 
Yes, I believe the all analogue nature of early vintage vinyl recordings is the key to their often uniquely lovely sound.

Digital vinyl certainly can be better than CD, but the question is how often and what is the cost to enable.

Personally, I am have no preference for digitally mastered vinyl over good CD home digital, but that is just me.

I have recorded many vintage vinyl recordings to CD quality digital to play from my music server and find that much if not all of the original charm is preserved along the way. That tells me playback format is less important than how the recording is made.

Also, FWIW, I find vintage Mercury Living Presence recordings on CD to share a lot of similarities to more modern Mapleshade recordings. These are two of my favorite CD labels. Both are purely analog recordings on CD. The MLPs from the 50's and 60's and the Mapleshades current.
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tdaudio
201 posts
 
What are the best recent Jazz releases. Looking for the best sound and performance. Hopefully its analog. For the most part my modest jazz collection was recorded 50 years ago. I would like some new stuff to compare it with.
jazdoc
365 posts
 
Worth looking for recordings on the Venus label including Chano Dominguez, Bill Charlap, Eric Alexander, etc.
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