| From: Evan Leibovitch via talk <talk@gtalug.org> Good advice about estate auctions and downsizing. | The best estate-auction site of which I'm aware is Maxsold, Thanks. I did not know about that site. | TMI time: In another message Hugh wrote: | | New receivers often don't support RIAA equalization needed for record | > players. You can get an external phonograph pre-amp to do that or you can | > get an old receiver with a phono input. (Since phonographs are cool again | > MAYBE phono in has been revived on some models.) | | | In my experience (and my first job was at a stereo store, TAT near | Yonge-Steeles), a pre-amp might be necessary, but it has nothing to do with | equalization. Rather, there used to be two stylus-cartridge types used for | turntables -- ceramic and magnetic. Ceramic cartridges were cheaper and had | lower-quality sound, but produced high sound levels similar to other | sources like cassette or CD players. Magnetic cartridges were more | expensive and accurate, but far quieter and needed a pre-amp. Most | receivers made from the 70s to the 2000s. and many but not all made today, | have a separate "phono" input that indicates a pre-amp is built in. Given | that these days vinyl records are bought for perceived better fidelity, | ceramic-based cartridges aren't even made anymore; the difference now is | moving-magnet or moving-coil. And I just shocked myself seeing what can be | spent on just a cartridge these days, in support of a medium I thought was | obsolete. | | (Whether the "record player" William has is ceramic or magnetic depends on | the stylus cartridge installed, not the turntable itself. Most likely | magnetic.) These things are arcane. But there are two different things going on here. LPs are recorded in a way to minimize the average width of a track. Without that, low notes would have large excursions. This processing uses the RIAA Equalization Curve. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization> Signals from other devices (tuners, tape decks, computers, ...) are not processed this way. "Moving Coil" cartridges were essentially audiophile things when I paid attention. They generated a lower signal level so they needed a special preamplifier. For signal integrity, it was felt that this should be as close to the cartridge as possible and was sometimes called a "head preamp". Eventually, the industry came up with a cheaper/simpler/inferior solution: a (passive) step-up transformer. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_cartridge#Moving_Magnet_vs._Moving_Coil> So: - before other processing, a signal from a moving coil cartridge needs to be specially boosted. - any record player signal needs to be fed to an input that reverses the RIAA equalization ("phono"). Or processed by a device to reverse RIAA before going to a normal audio input. (It may be that new beginner turntables do this themselves since phono inputs are almost extinct and explaining this stuff to a customer is hard.) - other signals must fed to an input that doesn't handle RIAA equalization. Those inputs are labelled almost anything but "phono" or synonyms. For example "audio in", "line in", etc. In computer networking terms: - use of a moving coil cartridge is a local decision so the MC pre-amp or transformer is a local decision. - use of RIAA equalization is an interoperation standard. Essentially all LPs require this.