Those of you on J.R. Boisclair's mailing list will already know about this, but it is an interesting discussion of what might lie ahead:
Has vinyl playback technology gone about as far as it can go?
- Thread starter Dogberry
- Start date
No, we have yet to listen to a turntable completely made up of non-metallic materials that pose no eddy current-related sonic problems for a magnetic cartridge
These days very few recordings are done in analog unless it specifically says so in the liner notes. CD was new in 1982, now it has become quite good in 2025.
Records released nowadays are recorded digitally and pressed and sold. Sonically my records sound better in the analog domain, including the type of recording method used.
So yes, records from 1983 sound better than records of 2025. Just my opinion.
To me digital recordings require no loudness switch or mono switch, certainly no tone controls. Analog needs availability of a mono and loudness switch because I have some recordings on LP that are old and need some help to sound their best, like The Mills Brothers or The Carter Family for example.
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the best part of 1983 for vinyl was 1983-1993 great pressings could be acquired cheaply. then the reissue craze and vinyl reawakening kicked off around 1994 and the cost of desired pressings skyrocketed.
the hardware part being better in 1983 than now is more muddled as far as 'better'; cases can be made both ways. if we had a time machine and had the opportunity to buy vinyl stuff from 1983 i think most serious vinyl people of today would be thinking pressings, not hardware, to begin with.
I was a late adopter of CDs. I waited until 1989. In direct comparisons I preferred my vinyl. I bought into CDs in 1989 for the convenience. CD changers could be loaded with 6 CD magazines and played for dinner parties, or even in the car. I added a changer to my 1990 Lincoln Town Car and it was great to play a magazine for 4 to 6 hours straight.
I am constantly impressed by how much musical information managed to get pressed into vinyl records using the crude electronics and materials of the day. 
Look at the pre-transistor electronics, the flawed cabling, the primitive transducers and monitors, those run of the mill fuses, etc. Using that stone age gear, how did that information end up on the records that we can now plumb, and that some/many still find superior to the most modern digital formats?
We pat ourselves on the back, but we are still struggling to get as much out of records now that was placed into the format 60+ years ago.
Fascinating, to me.
Look at the pre-transistor electronics, the flawed cabling, the primitive transducers and monitors, those run of the mill fuses, etc. Using that stone age gear, how did that information end up on the records that we can now plumb, and that some/many still find superior to the most modern digital formats?
We pat ourselves on the back, but we are still struggling to get as much out of records now that was placed into the format 60+ years ago.
Fascinating, to me.
You touch on something else as or more important than format and that is the recording method. To carry vinyl further I think we need recording engineers like those who pioneeerd stereo recording. People like Robert and Wilma Cozart Fine with their two microphone technique at Mercury, the left-center-right microphone set-up (mixed down to two tracks) used by Lewis Layton and Richard Mohr for RCA's Living Stereo, and the tree microphone configurationn refined by Decca's Kenneth Wilkinson. From today's perspective these simpler approaches gave us some of the most impressive recordings we know.
Record producers need to use top quality vinyl without plasticizers. The oil crisis of the mid-70s gave us a lot of lousy sounding records. In the 90s when people starting switching to CD and a lot less vinyl was sold, producers turned to cheap re-cycled vinyl for a better return. There are but a handful of manufacturer's making record-quality PVC pellets and there is not always consistency in their products. When Butch Hobson was making Classic Records re-issues he was constantly switching companies for quality lacquers
Deutsche-Grammaphon just released a new classical LP in AAA -- their first since 1981. I suspect the success of their AAA The Original Source remasters taken from tape told them there is a market for such. And now Decca is introducing 3 AAA remastered LPs. We shall see.
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I bought my first CD player in 2006. It was a McIntosh MCD201. Later I got a MCD500 in 2010, and finally I have a MCD12000 as my final player.
I sold my first LP12 in 2005, so I was without a turntable for about 5 years. During that time I bought quite a few CD's so I was acclimated to the sound. I bought a new LP12 in 2010 so I compared my records to CD's on my table that was set up.
Overall I was glad that I choose to use tubes for digital because the tubes , I suspect because of even order harmonics, the sound of my CD's were too bright on solid state but sounded pretty good with digital and the sound was not as bright sounding. I could definitely hear differences between records and CD's. I was late coming to digital but glad I decided to get into now with my newest CD player and Bluetooth Transceiver.
I had thought so, but then about a year ago I heard a turntable, built to admittedly extreme limits and cost, that extracted as much information from the grooves as I had heard before, but it presented that information in the most natural and calm way I had yet heard. This was an ultra high mass thread drive table with refinements to the motor controller and to energy management.
I guess the limits have been approached, but I continue to be surprised by the new things I hear. There is an incredible amount of information embedded in the grooves of the best vinyl records. It is a matter of extracting that information and presenting it with a little corruption as possible. Of course, the rest of the system, the set up, and the room have to be able to support the presentation too. I think the biggest challenges going forward are in bringing down the costs, in motor and controller improvements, in producing worthy new recordings, and in more enthusiasts learning the skill of proper set up. Set up may be the single biggest challenge holding back top playback.
The best playback technology of the past and present is very good IMO, but I remain optimistic that a few obsessed lunatics will push it even further.
I guess the limits have been approached, but I continue to be surprised by the new things I hear. There is an incredible amount of information embedded in the grooves of the best vinyl records. It is a matter of extracting that information and presenting it with a little corruption as possible. Of course, the rest of the system, the set up, and the room have to be able to support the presentation too. I think the biggest challenges going forward are in bringing down the costs, in motor and controller improvements, in producing worthy new recordings, and in more enthusiasts learning the skill of proper set up. Set up may be the single biggest challenge holding back top playback.
The best playback technology of the past and present is very good IMO, but I remain optimistic that a few obsessed lunatics will push it even further.
Interesting. Are you saying that both turntables extract similar amounts of the information, and mostly differ in the way they present it?
In my opinion, the cartridge extracts the information. I compared the tables at my house with same cartridge and arm. The turntable ( and arm) has a lot to do with how much that extracted information is corrupted. Speed and energy management are the issues. That is where design and implementation really matter. Again, in my opinion based on various comparisons I have made.
The best turntable I have heard is called "The Absolute Nothing" (TAN) for a reason. It was designed to neither add nor subtract anything to the presentation. I think it succeeds at that goal. Others may differ. I find the big Micro very neutral. The AS 1000, AS 2000, and the TAN take that same principle further each slightly improving speed performance and reducing the effect of resonance reaching the LP resulting in the final presentation. There are also improvements around the LP/platter interface and materials for magnetism. The result is easy to hear at each new level, but the basic character remains the same because that starting point is close to neutral.
Well. you did not answer the very simple simple question on your previous post - is it a yes or no?
Oh, sorry I thought I was clear. You really asked two questions. In my opinion, the turntables DO NOT extract the information from the grooves. That is the job of the cartridge. So the answer to the first question is NO. Both turntables do not extract any information from the grooves.
The answer to your second question is YES. The difference between the two turntables is how they present the information extracted by cartridge. But the arms (in my case the same one) also contributes to the presentation as does the cartridge.
The two turntables are simply the platforms on which the information is extracted. One corrupts the information less and so the music is presented more convincingly, and thus sounds more natural.
When we represent that information as a sine wave, the amplitude portion of the musical waveform comes from the cartridge, but the frequency portion, the time element of that waveform, comes from the turntable.
true, but it gets lots of help at that. since there are many factors determining how properly the stylus can track. which then determines just how completely the information in the groove is read.
when i sold my Wave Kinetics NVS turntable that freed up my Taiko Tana (Herzan) active platform to use under my Esoteric T1 turntable. which reduced ground noise/resonance and acoustic feedback. which noticeably improved the dynamic life of the music with musical threads being more defined. so more information from the turntable improving performance.
which interestingly boosted the Primary Control FCL arm more than the Durand Tosca; my guess was that the FCL had greater apparent performance hidden previously in masking resonance now revealed. so this indicated to me that i could invest in upgrading my Tosca to the Limited Edition level would yield some payoff. so i did that and the Limited Edition Tosca did step up now at least equal to the FCL.
so what did i learn? that improving the effectiveness of the turntable improved information. also better arms can also benefit from the level of the turntable. and both turntables and arms effect information. they allow detail to be more real and musically significant. not every floor, or rack, or turntable is well enough sorted to be able to benefit equally from lowering ground noise or acoustic/floor born feedback. some turntables might even be voiced for some lovely resonance 'blur'.
and maybe some turntables have such mass and solidity that additional mitigating resonance treatment is not relevant. or active or other sophisticated methods useful. but their build is contributing to the detail retrieval too. in any case, turntables and arms do influence detail. cartridges simply are at the end/start of the chain.
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The way I look at it, Mike, is that the cartridge is extracting the information and your turntable without the active platform was corrupting that information because it allowed vibrations to affect the reading of the grooves. Once you sorted that out, the information that the cartridge transcribes is closer to what is embedded in the grooves.
To Tim’s point, the frequency portion of the waveform is encoded in the grooves by the cutterhead (excluding a couple steps during the making of the record). My understanding is that that information is already in the record. Yes the platter must rotate at the correct speed for the information to sound right but the turntable is not creating the information or extracting it. The turntable simply provides the correct environment for the information to be extracted by the cartridge. At least that’s the way I look at it. I’m happy to be corrected.
I don’t mean to imply that the turntable and tone arm don’t have an influence. They have a big influence. The way I see it, all the information is already in the record. The cartridge extracts it. The turntable and tone arm provide the platform for the cartridge. A necessary condition for the cartridge to do its work is the turntable spinning at the proper speed. Beyond that the tone arm and the turntable can only degrade or corrupt the information that’s being extracted. The less degradation or corruption, the closer the end result presentation is to the original information that already exists in its best form in the grooves.
The best turntable and arm are those that do the least harm to the original signal. That’s why accurate speed and resonance management are so important.
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