Lugnut...Perhaps you didn't notice or have forgotten that about a year ago, encouraged by postings by you and some others, I made a very deliberate reevaluation of today's vinyl playback equipment. I did this by visiting the high end emporium that I have dealt with for several decades, and challenging them to demonstrate what could be done. I don't recall exactly what hardware was used, but I do recall that the MC preamp was a $20,000 item. Hard to forget that!
As a result of this reevaluation, which also included some experimentation and measurements on my own system I concluded that vinyl could be somewhat better than I had thought. In particular, I was surprised to find that my own lowly Shure V15MR pickup, and certain of my LPs, did have signal higher than 20 KHz. I could see that on my spectrum analyser, but unfortunately my ears don't have comparable frequency response.
In the end, although I concede that a $50,000 vinyl front end is better than a $2,000 one, and that a $50 LP is better than the ones that I own, the difference, at least to my ears is not that great. Also, and perhaps I am overly sensitive to it, surface noise remains a problem. For me, the improvement is not worth the cost. I think we both have the same facts to work with, but have reached different conclusions. You are entitled to yours, and I to mine. Perhaps our priorities and financial situations are different. (I would rather buy an airplane).
