replacing cartridges

[Graham_Start]

Ooh goody, I get to blab on and on about one of my favourite subjects :grin:

To me, it all depends.

I have found that, as a general rule, the pressing from the country that the original label is based on usually sounds best. This is especially true with smaller labels.

Most US records have very good mastering, but are pressed on mediocre vinyl. Some European pressings are on better vinyl, but may not have as good mastering. For the record (pun not intended... honest!), Canadian pressing usually have both mediocre vinyl and mastering, with a few exceptions. Having said that...

- Every German and Dutch pressing I've come across sounds wonderful.
- French and Italian vinyl can vary considerably. I've had some very good ones, and some truly horrible ones.
- UK pressings are usually pretty good, but there are a few labels to avoid: Pye and United Artists -- these labels used waaay too much compression during mastering.
- Canadian and Australian pressings are generally so-so for both mastering and vinyl quality.
- Japanese vinyl is wonderful, but there don't seem to be a lot of them outside of Japan.
- Swedish records are quite good as well, but you're not likely to find them outside of Europe... unless you start trading with people overseas

You can generally judge the quality by the label. Some are notorious for poor quality (AVI), others are almost always excellent (A&M). But even then there are still exceptions. For example, original US Prelude copies are almost always much better than the Canadian releases, which were pressed by the ironically-named Quality Records. But the US release of Macho's "I'm A Man" sounds absolutely horrible. It is quite obvious that some part of the signal chain broke down when it was mastered. Over the course of the album, one channel gradually dies. I recently found a Canadian copy, and it does not have this problem. This is one of the few times I would choose a Canadian copy over a US.

[smartpapi]

Bernie, THanks for the comment . The tonearm I'm using on the Rega is a Grace. I originally had it coupled with a Grace cartridge. THe rega is the one of the first produced way back when, and the grace cartridgeshven't been available for quite some time , so I was using the Grado. Sounds great with either cartridge. Thanks agin ,Ray