Graham Slee Accession

[bjornvinyl]

Hi, I was intrigued by VinylStudio's new feature to record from Graham Slee's Accession's CA/Flat setting. It so happens I am using Accession as my phono preamp. I did a recording on one modern vinyl record (Lana Del Rey's Blue Banister) and did the appropriate settings on both the Accession and in VinylStudio and it sounds good. However, I would be hard pressed to say that it is better than recording the already equalised output from the Accession. What would be expected? Better headroom, lower noise and or distortion? I do see the benefit when recording older records with pre RIAA-preemphasis, one could choose the best sounding correction afterwards, but on modern records? Best regards

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

Hi,

My understanding is that using this setting better compensates for the fact that magnetic cartridges do not have, as is commonly assumed, a flat frequency response.  Instead, the output level rises, broadly speaking, at higher frequencies, and the CA/Flat setting compensates for this.

But I'm not an authority, you might be better advised to ask Graham himself:

https://www.hifisystemcomponents.com/services/contact-us.html

And, as ever, let your ears be your guide.

[bjornvinyl]

I did ask Graham and this is his answer:

"I believe there is a very subtle difference due to the analogue method creating a phase difference, which analogue filters always do, and there being no phase manipulation in digital signal processing (as far as I am aware). However, it will be around 10kHz if the effects are noticeable (45 degrees), which, depending on age, may go unnoticed. I did hear a slight difference in instrumental timing on the comparison recordings Paul sent me. This was on high frequency instruments which places it in the percussion group, or at harmonics of mid range instruments. Hard to spot."

My conclusion is that I will do my standard procedure to record modern records not to complicate things. But I will definitely investigate this feature for older records. It is always interesting to use VinylStudio!

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

I believe your truncated posts (now edited or deleted, as appropriate) are caused by iPhones / iPads generating 'smart quotes' (ugh).  Our forum software doesn't seem to like those for some reason, so best to avoid them.