[analogsurviver]

I'm waiting for cassettes to follow suit and make a comeback. Then we can obsess over bias, calibration, Dolby NR, demagnetizing, etc...

 
If that really happens, I hope it would be accompanied by re-introduction of really good tapes, both for the bang for the buck and Uber Alles categories.
 
Trouble is, if you are environmentalist and analog audiophile/tapehead, that is similar to vegetarian running a slaughterhouse....

 

[OPR8R]

Am I the only one who wasn't sad to see cassette go?  I wish we could have vinyl back the way it was, but to analogsurviver's point, what a mess cassette was.

 

[Skylab]

What needs to make more of a come back is reel to reel! Not cassette.

 

[palmfish]

What needs to make more of a come back is reel to reel! Not cassette.

Yes!

Now where did I leave my tray, tape, and razor blades...

 

[Shaffer]

   
Nope.  We got ours with the cartridge installed.  I assume since it was professionally done that a protractor was used.  I only fiddled with mine because I had an issue.

 
If I may, I worked as a setup specialist at a well-known (analog) dealer a time back. I sold other gear, sure, but my main function revolved around setting up (and selling) turntables. If you bought a Rega, for example, spending more than 10 minutes on its setup would cost me money. Not even 10 minutes. If you wanted me to come to your house for more serious setup, I billed (on average) at ~$2 per minute, as there was a lot more effort put into the process and the outcome was self-evident. At the risk of stating the brutally obvious, even a toothpick will produce a sound from a spinning LP. Making a sound isn't what quality analog replay is about. The better your 'table is setup, the more you will benefit, directly. Good setup takes time. A lot of time. No dealer is able to do that for you. Not today. Not for so little money. There's no better time to learn how to do it, yourself. Good luck.

 

[bbophead]

 

   
Nope.  We got ours with the cartridge installed.  I assume since it was professionally done that a protractor was used.  I only fiddled with mine because I had an issue.

 
If I may, I worked as a setup specialist at a well-known (analog) dealer a time back. I sold other gear, sure, but my main function revolved around setting up (and selling) turntables. If you bought a Rega, for example, spending more than 10 minutes on its setup would cost me money. Not even 10 minutes. If you wanted me to come to your house for more serious setup, I billed (on average) at ~$2 per minute, as there was a lot more effort put into the process and the outcome was self-evident. At the risk of stating the brutally obvious, even a toothpick will produce a sound from a spinning LP. Making a sound isn't what quality analog replay is about. The better your 'table is setup, the more you will benefit, directly. Good setup takes time. A lot of time. No dealer is able to do that for you. Not today. Not for so little money. There's no better time to learn how to do it, yourself. Good luck.

 
 
 
I live sixty miles out.  Told them what I wanted, gave them a week and then picked it up.  Whenever I go to the store in the middle of the day (yes, it's the last of the brick and mortars in Austin), more often than not, the staff is not occupied.  I think they have plenty of time to set up a Rega since they've been doing it for at least the last thirty years.  I buy a new turntable, on average, about every ten to fifteen years, and getting good at setting one up would be a little hard.  So, I leave it to someone who does it on a daily basis and have had excellent results.  After all, I pay close to list and the dealer gets to earn some of the profit margin.  What am I missing?

 

[parbaked]

   
 
 
  What am I missing?

Tweaking and obsessing instead of listening to music 

 
Some like it others don't.
There is no doubt one can hear the difference, but that doesn't mean that's how one needs to spend one's time and effort. 
Nothing wrong with buying a nice deck and having a good shop or tech set it up and enjoying it!

 

[analogsurviver]

   
If I may, I worked as a setup specialist at a well-known (analog) dealer a time back. I sold other gear, sure, but my main function revolved around setting up (and selling) turntables. If you bought a Rega, for example, spending more than 10 minutes on its setup would cost me money. Not even 10 minutes. If you wanted me to come to your house for more serious setup, I billed (on average) at ~$2 per minute, as there was a lot more effort put into the process and the outcome was self-evident. At the risk of stating the brutally obvious, even a toothpick will produce a sound from a spinning LP. Making a sound isn't what quality analog replay is about. The better your 'table is setup, the more you will benefit, directly. Good setup takes time. A lot of time. No dealer is able to do that for you. Not today. Not for so little money. There's no better time to learn how to do it, yourself. Good luck.

 
+10 to the power of X. X can be any positive number > say 2.
 
Any really decent cartridge installation will take AT LEAST about a day. Not working 8 hours day, but - day, from when you wake up and till fall down drained and exhausted enough not to want to listen to anything anymore. And fine nursing that cart to full potential may involve very careful monitoring
the performance with repeated measurements during the first say 100 hours. 
 
Try to put that in money - no dealer will be prepared to do it, even if he is, quite unlikely, in the possesion of knowledge, equipment and experience required. Even with 4 and 5 figure price carts.
 
Now *think* what kind of adjustment can you get with new tables < 500 bucks ...

 

[OPR8R]

That makes sense.  As I recall, I had to wait an extra few days for cartridge installation.  But why wouldn't a shop hire full time salaried employees that just do work?

 

[analogsurviver]

  Am I the only one who wasn't sad to see cassette go?  I wish we could have vinyl back the way it was, but to analogsurviver's point, what a mess cassette was.

 
My point was obiously not put clear enough.
 
Analog is unfortunately much less enviroment friendly than digital. Those who have  ( had ) "luck" to live close to the record pressing plant know damn well what I mean. And analog tape, be it cassette or open reel, contains some of the nastiest heavy metals you can possibly think of. What is good for the sound can be very detrimental for enviroment.
 
Kind of the classic scene from the movie Lenny ( played by Dustin Hoffman, 1974 ): bar ( a night club ), a georgeous stripper doing her act, guys drooling...
 
Guy A : Would you ... her ?
Guy B: 

Guy A: Would you marry her ?
Guy B: Are YOU

crazy

!!!!?
 
And no, I absolutely do not think cassette, at least in its mature swan song incarnation, was ( IS ) a mess. More about this some other time, results and the verdict may well be the shock that would prove to be hard to stomach to most.

 

[Shaffer]

  That makes sense.  As I recall, I had to wait an extra few days for cartridge installation.  But why wouldn't a shop hire full time salaried employees that just do work?

 
Because, virtually no-one is willing to pay for the service. I mean, pay what it's worth. I guy with a $2000 budget doesn't see the value in investing several hundred into better performance - ironic, I know. Many who buy more advanced 'tables are fully capable of setting them up, themselves, as they should. It's not rocket science and it doesn't need to involve an endless amount of tweaking. That's called taking shots in the dark. Ignorance isn't always bliss.

 

[analogsurviver]

  That makes sense.  As I recall, I had to wait an extra few days for cartridge installation.  But why wouldn't a shop hire full time salaried employees that just do work?

 
Cruel facts: 
 
1. EACH cartridge, regardless of price, should be adjusted with the same precision.Taking about same time. Only top 1% of carts justify super duper
    extra attention - and that can not be acomplished in a single day.
2. With every move you make during adjustment, you risk cartridge damage or even total destruction. Think how many installations you would have to do
    to cover for a single "oops" of a say $5000 cart with 2/3rd to 90% of that for repair/retipping.
3. People capable of doing qualified installations/adjustments are VERY hard to come by. Usually, they are earning incomparably more at their usual         jobs  than they could installing cartridges.
4. Try it once yourself; it is easy to bla bla about it, when it comes to aligning the lateral geometry EXACTLY , not "we will leave that to the trainee as an     exercise/homework" - then you will begin to grasp what it really means. Practice on some low priced cart.
 
Than think of the guys who plunk a couple of grands on cart - and find low X00 $ ( X between 1 and 2 ) for installation WAAAAY too expensive. Two bolts and four clips can not possibly be that hard...
 
It is not. Takes 2-3 minutes ( given the appropriate hardware ). But getting the cart under just the right set of adjustments to suit that particular sample best takes another X00 minutes - X being high single or low double figure.
 
I certainly do not want to intimidate anybody, particularly not novices. Analog is tricky - it does not always respond the same as digital/computers - 
you can google as much as you please regarding cartridgge adjustment - somebody will eventually have to do the nitty gritty. I am merely saying that
cartridge alignment done right is way too costly with lower priced tables/carts for the dealer to be acceptable. Dealers of high end carts do have margins that should cover quality installation. 
 
And yes, properly adjusted Rega/Project/etc with Ortofon 2MRed/AT110/Shure97e/some Grado/etc will smoke >10 K table "with two bolts and four clips".

 

[Silent One]

 So, there's hope...

 

[longbowbbs]

I just got this mental image of a Chevy Vega with a small block 350 in it.....

 

[Silent One]

 
I read a lot about those installs (327 & 350 Short-blocks) and the telephone poles that followed! But I understand what prompted the image.