sse@BREEZE.bellcore.com (Samuel S. Epstein) (06/05/91)
Looking (far) ahead to the demise of the LP, I'm almost settled on a policy on cartridge maintenance: buy a top of the line Shure moving magnet, and replace the stylus periodically. The primary attraction is ease of maintenance. I'm manually clumsy. It's much, much easier to change a stylus on a moving magnet than to set up a turntable for a new cartridge. This plan also involves relatively small expense, and a relatively reliable source. The disadvantage is that I expect I'll lose some fidelity of reproduction. I have a VPI Junior with Audioquest PT5 tonearm, Audioquest MC5 cartridge, and Audioquest Sapphire tonearm cable, connected to a MFA Magus preamp, Audioquest Emerald interconnects, PSE Studio 4 amp, biwired Tara speaker cables (3 strands Time and Space, 1 strand TFA Return), and Vandersteen 2Ci speakers. There's a rumor of a fairly cheap upgrade of the Junior to near-TNT state. But if I did that, it wouldn't make sense not to upgrade the tonearm and cartridge. But then it wouldn't make sense not to buy a record cleaning machine. And it wouldn't make sense not to buy lots of LP's now while they're still available (if you look hard). This adds up to a heavy investment. I've decided to look ahead instead to eventually upgrading my CD system. I'm still reluctant to take my phono system down a notch. Can anyone tell me how Shures sound with a Junior and PT5? Other comments on how to adapt to the end of the analog era are welcome. Sam Epstein Bellcore 445 South St., 2Q-350 Morristown, NJ 07960 epstein@breeze.bellcore.com (201) 829-4427