I can't really agree with this Tonepub, some of the best sounding and best music I have on albums is from those I bought at a "bargain." A good table will make every album sound as it should. As I see it the problem with the pristine records theory is that you can end up with 50 to 100 audiophile approved records to play on the better table/arm/cart/pre combination while missing so much music and emotion on the other much more numerous albums that aren't pristine and only get played on the second system.
How many of us know guys with $10000 analog rigs and 100-200 audiophile approved albums? The sound vs. music trap.
You can disagree all you want, but I don't think you were getting the point.
Yes any good turntables will make records sound "As they should".
I'm not talking about the 50 "audiophile approved" records. What I am talking about is the guys that have the amazing collections with a lot of low number stampers of their favorite records.
I've spent enough time with these records (though I don't own as many as I would like) to hear a big difference between those and the bargain records you buy at a used record store for 1-5 dollars.
The point I was trying to make is that I would stop my spending at a certain point if you don't have a collection of pristine records, because it's wasted money.
If your collection consists of mostly bargain records, spending more than $5-10k on an analog front end (table, arm, cartridge and phono preamp) will only give you marginal improvement in resolution, because the information is not in the pressing.
We've compared enough tables side by side and the other major point of diminishing returns is the software. If you have original or very low number pressings in pristine shape, there is more info to hear. If you have bargain pressings, they will still sound ok-good, but that's the best you can hope for.
When we had the Continuum, the Spiral Groove and the SME20 to compare side by side with the Rega P9, using identical $5000 Dynavector XV-1s cartridges, the difference between the big bucks tables and the P9 was pretty major with the great records. With the budget records, not so big.
I'm not a record snob. 2/3rds of my record collection is average, but I've spent plenty of time with the record collectors that have the good stuff and it's not having 50 audiophile approved pressings, it's having a large collection of AMAZING records.
The bad news is that most of these jewels are gone, or are fetching such high prices on Ebay, etc. that they really aren't worth buying. The other bad news is that a lot of these original pressings sound even better than the new remastered versions. But fortunately those records are much better than the $5 stuff. Every now and then you get lucky and will find a low stamper number of something you love and the guy behind the record counter won't know what he's got, but those days are few and far inbetween.
So again, that's why I'd quantify someone's record collection as a legitimate question in how far to take an analog front end.
Conversely, if you are listening to an SL1200, Rega P3 or Scout, I wouldn't pay a fortune for records, because you don't have enough resolution to hear that big of a difference.
Really, the sweet spot in the vinyl gig if you don't have the killer record collection is about $3-10k for the whole deal. You can get good enough sound to really enjoy analog and probably (depending on your digital front end) get better sound than your digital front end too.
Believe me, if I could go back in time, I'd have paid a lot more attention to what I was buying on vinyl 25 years ago. The guys I know with these records bought em back when they WERE four dollar records in the used bin.
