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Stereo Separation - Turntable

I'm new to turntables - just bought my first Music Hall MMF2.2. I've noticed on multiple stereo vinyl recordings (recordings I am quite familiar with on CD), that the stereo separation is rather extreme. What I mean by that is on albums like Cannonball Adderley's Somethin' Else, where there is percussion and horns, the left channel plays the horns and the right channel the bass and drums. Piano is in the center. Is this typical? I thought perhaps it was a speaker placement/toeing issue, but the same setup but played on CD does not have that problem -- the sound on CD is centered with a wide sound stage.

I suppose I'm wondering if this is a limitation of my turntable, or a setup/connection issue or a recording issue? The records that I've noticed this on are all stereo and all bought new. Turntable setup includes the MMF 2.2 mentioned above, stock musichall tracker cartridge, a Cambridge Audio 640p phono stage, hooked up to an Adcom GTP500 preamp and NAD320BEE amp.

Thank you for any help/suggestions.

David
dmloring
riley804
628 posts
 
Here might be info that might be of some help to you:

http://www.vinylengine.com/library/music-hall.shtml
casey33
260 posts
 
I would recommend getting a test record.One that tells you"this is the left channel,this is the right channel..." and more importantly will check phase.If you have a channel out of phase,it will make the soundstage seem excessively wide.It will also help you achieve peace of mind,when tweaking.Casey.
mnmark
39 posts
 
Dmloring, This is a long time favorite album of mine. I first bought it on CD many years ago, and it had the extreme hard left and right stereo. Later, I bought a copy of it for a friend, and the newer copy was an RVG remastered version. The Rudy Van Gelder reissue, though clearly stereo, was much more down the middle, and I actually prefer the earlier version. I think this is generally true about the more recent RVG remasterings. Both vinyl versions of this that I own, one a Japan King Blue Note and the other a recent 180 pressing have the original hard L and R stereo.

MnMark
dmloring OP
34 posts
 
Casey -- great idea. Thanks.

MnMark -- interesting. Not quite sure how that sound is considered stereo. If my integrated amp had a mono switch, I might actually considering using that on records like this. As for Somethin' Else. Next to "The Cannonball Adderly Quintet in San Fransisco," this is one of my "desert island" albums. Spontaneous Combustion is simply one of the most outstanding tunes ever recorded, IMO, by Cannonball.
hiho
451 posts
 
That is just typical early Blue Note stereo recording as the engineer Rudy Van Gelder early on did not have a pair of speakers so he hard panned each channel so he could hear it on his mono Altec 604. I think the later recordings are less extreme but many jazz listener just gotten used to that hard left and hard right and it sort of became a trademark of recording of this era. Simply play a mono recording on your turntable and play the same mono CD and you notice there's no difference. If the stereo CD of the same recording is different in terms of soundstaging, then it has been remixed. You just happened to find an extreme case here. There's nothing wrong with you system and this extreme hard pan thing has nothing to do with the intrinsic nature of turntable system. Just enjoy the music.
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