Who uses high end TT setup for vintage records ?

I have another theory as to why records pressed in the 50s and 60s sound as good as they do. In addition to the fact that the recording, mastering and pressing were all done with tube gear, we shouldn't overlook the fact that all of this electronic processing was done in a cleaner environment than exists anywhere today. In the modern world, every piece of electronic gear that is plugged into the power grid is affected by the nasty spikes and high-frequency noise from computers, appliances and the like. Moreover, every piece of electronic gear today, whether connected to the power grid or not, operates in a polluted soup of high-frequency noise---microwaves, cell phones, wi-fi and all sorts of unwanted digital transmissions are simply part of our environment. There is no escape from these forms of interference. Every LP pressed in 2012 has this noisy environment embedded into the vinyl grooves to some degree, whereas no record pressed in the 60s or earlier suffers from it.

Of course, the above is just speculation and there is no way to prove how much of an effect it has. Plus I am aware we can use power line filters and equipment can be shielded to minimize the effects. Nevertheless, the interference can only be reduced, not eliminated. Just some food for thought.

SAlectric.

That's an interesting theory.

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that the hifi industry was still new and a novelty back then and leading studios invested to be on the cutting edge. There was a greater attention to technical details along the lines of modern Mapleshade recordings, which is an anomaly these days. I suspect most studios use tried and true "proven" technical gear and approaches in teh interest of cost efficiencies these days in that it is not as hard to deliver a decent quality recording though delivering the best of anything is always a challenge.

I wonder if some of the new/old LP sound comes down to the expertise of mastering engineers and new vs old methods. In the 50's,60's and 70's I suspect that there were large numbers of mastering engineers all of whom were mastering for vinyl. Between the advent of the CD and the near loss of the LP as a viable format, I suspect that we lost many of the engineers that had developed mastering stereo vinyl to/for lp's (some of whom I understand would make adjustments "on-the-fly" to compensate for frequency/dynamic changes at the beginning /end of a side.

some of whom I understand would make adjustments "on-the-fly" to compensate for frequency/dynamic changes at the beginning /end of a side.

If they did, it must be an unusual thing to do- there is nothing about that showing up in RCA's studio manual or any of the manuals on the cutterheads of the day.