RIAA vs Columbia vs Decca

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization

Well find out which one sound right for each LP you are playing.
At least up to the mid 1950's the alternate curves were in use.

The Wiki aticle claims some used alternate curves as late as the 1970's..
Though most of them were basically similar. With a cut of bass, and a boost of treble in recording. with the reverse in playback.

Remastered LPs of original monos will have the RIAA curve even though the original might have used different EQ. BTW most of the alternate EQ settings (Columbia and Decca being two examples) are used for 78s and were never used for LP.

I just purchased the ARC phono stage as well. While I realize RIAA is technically correct, I've found the Columbia eq takes the edge off the bright strings on early stereo Columbia Masterworks recordings. I'm dumbfounded, but it really makes Walter and Szell much more listenable.

The problem with old records is not only RI.A.A. but in many cases also reverse/inverse phase:

"those made in the late 70's & 80's, many labels did not adopt R.I.A.A. curve in the 50's, 60's, 70's and even 80's, that was why even though I had acquired many LPs, half of them did not sound good. Yamada-san further explained to me several years ago in the tube era, big labels such as DECCA, EMI, Deustche Gramophone used their own in-house equalization curve in their recordings and all of them were in reverse/inverse phase, you can easily check this out when you play CDs with old recordings of the abovementioned labels"

Chakster, I can't agree with you on the above statement. The reason why is the labels did not choose the EQ curve. The manufacturer of the cutterhead electronics did. For example we use the Westerex 3D cutterhead and the 1700 electronics. The EQ curve is set by Westerex, not the various and many labels that used that equipment. The same is true of Neumann, who made the lathes and electronics used by many of the European labels.

If you hear differences between the labels (I know I do) its not really because of then not using the RIAA curve (every stereo LP made uses it). Its because that particular label did something to the signal prior to it ever getting to the cutter electronics. A great example is Everest, who had a special tape machine that recorded on 35 mm tape that was the same format as 35mm motion picture film. Turns out they had a bug in the EQ of the recorder that rolled off the bass at 6db/octave starting at 100Hz.

The latter sentence in your quote is simply untrue and is some sort of urban legend. If you think about it you will see why- after the inception of the stereo LP, all phono reproducers had the RIAA curve installed, with a very few preamps made that still included the older mono EQ curves. None of those older curves were used in the stereo era and by 1965 or so there were no more preamps made with the older curves. So where in the heck would the Europeans buy their preamps to play back their LPs with non-standard EQ curves?? The answer is of course that they didn't; all stereo LPs actually employed the same curves.