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Re: I listened to it carefully with records I knew well.....

Posted by jcarr (M) on August 14, 2005 at 01:09:01

In Reply to: I listened to it carefully with records I knew well..... posted by vinyl1 on August 13, 2005 at 19:19:55:

The Japanese audio press has noted years ago that a certain amount of physical deformation of the LP groove is necessary for proper sound during playback. And I've confirmed as much with the engineers responsible for the King Super Analog LP series.

Not only is an LP groove cut with a stylus under pressure, it is also intended to be played with a stylus under pressure, and it is mastered by the cutting engineers so that it sounds the best when deformed by the pressure of a physical stylus. Test lacquers and test pressings are made, played back, and if the resulting sound suggests that adjustments should be made to the cutting setup, this will be done. Basically, the engineer will make adjustments to the cutting setup until he gets a sound that he subjectively feels is the best that he can accomplish. From beginning to end, the playback and checking of lacquers and test LPs is done by a cartridge with a physical stylus, and the engineer takes the pressure-induced groove deformation into account. In fact, some engineers play the test pressing back once without listening to it seriously, play it back a second time in immediate succession, and base their judgement on the sound of the second playback. In other words, they are adjusting the cutting setup so that the LP will sound the best when the groove has undergone two accumulated physical deformations.

Now if the mastering engineers would check the test lacquers and pressings with an optical playback system so that physical groove deformation was never an issue during the mastering and cutting process, then yes, something like the ELP would be the proper way to listen to LPs. But as it stands, trying to apply a non-pressure playback system (ELP) to a product that is made to be played with pressure applied (LP) is misguided, AFAICT.

hth, jonathan carr

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