How important is +- 0.1 db from RIAA curve?

Dear Captain_winters: IMHO as better accuracy you have in each link of your audio system as more faithfull you have on what is in the recording ( everything the same. ), you are nearest to the recording.

From that point of view accuracy on the RIAA is a must to have for not change the tonal balance on the recording. Remember that the RIAA proccess in a phono stage is an inverse RIAA eq. to permit return/come back during playback to flat response that was altered during the recording overall proccess.

Now, the Neuman correction is always welcomed because during the cutting proccess the cutting head normally can't goes over 50khz with out burning so they stop here. During playback with out the Neuman correction the HF goes/follow falling to infinite according to the RIAA curve. So, you can here a difference when you hear a phono stage that comes with the Neuman correction that if we " see " on the whole subject is the way how the recording comes!.

There are some phono stages where you can switch between that Neuman correction and with out it and the owner decide what he like it.

Problem with the Neuman correction implementation is that has some troubles on the frequency domain as on phase shifts and other issues so you have to have the right knowledge level to make the design with out those " problems ".

All in all is a good characteristic for any phono stage. Today more and more manufacturers are implementd it.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.

I am a pro violinist, and my instrument with the same strings, bow, rosin, etc. sounds different in every concert hall I have ever played in. I therefore wonder how important a minor electronic deviation is.

Stringreen, That's an excellent point and one that supports what a good friend involved with the Vienna Opera told me: He said "there is no absolute sound" precisely because of your observation. And then there is position in the audience, humidity, is the hall crowded etc. It never sounds the same. All we can hope for is get closer and closer to what is on the recording. Even that seems fruitless on some level.

However, to Raul's point, there is an argument for trying to maintain a standard in the playback equipment in order to decrease the variables which take us away from what is encoded in the recording.

Dear Stringreen: I don't know which is your main target you have with your home audio system when you started to build your system and when you make some changes of audio items trying to improve its quality performance level.

Mine is to enjoy the Music that comes in the LP recordings adding the less and losing the less of the recording signal. One factors/parameter/characteristic that always helps to achieve my main home system target is: accuracy at each single audio link in the audio chain.

+++++ " I therefore wonder how important a minor electronic deviation is. " +++++

maybe if that was the only system deviation could not matters at all but audio life is not so easy: we have a lot of different kind of deviations/distortions at each single system audio link. Got it?

Tha's all. Of course for what you posted your main target is different and nothing wrong with that. The audio worls can be boring if all of us thinked the same.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.

Well if it is agreed that Neumann HF correction is a good thing, and that is debatable, then the +-0.1 db standard on RIAA cannot be achieved, since Neumann correction deviates from RIAA by -0.64 db, (referencing the work done in the Stereophile article).