With my Martini and Music, I'd like an Olive

[Occhidiangela]

You talk the talk, but if you were really a vinyl enthusiast you would be saving all your money to buy some new cartridge or rare LPs instead of spending it on a machine that will strip your collection of it's analoggy goodness! You do realize you will now have the worst of both worlds, right? The flawed sounds of analog transferred to the lifeless realm of digital? :ph34r:

Truth be told, I've never heard an audiophile grade turntable setup.

Well, it made quite a difference. I used to use test records to fine tune the tracking to a gnat's arse about once a month. (LP life extended and taping improved.) My Technics DD had a top end Shure cartridge that cost almost as much as the turntable, before they both got destroyed in a move. That led to a linear tracking B & O that had no problems with scratch or flutter. The frequency response of a good cartridge is key, as you noted. That is a separate issue with my turntable set up, not the recording set up. Having grown up with LP, I don't lose sleep over a few pops and whazzits, as I am very familiar with the records I have anyway. I admit that I stopped using a graphic equalizer some years ago. It didn't improve the listening experience all that much.

Wasting money on LP's at this point merely feeds someone's eBay selling habit.

The Klipsch are a very brutal speaker: any flaws in reproduction you hear. I am down with that.

I made tape mixes for years, on cassette tapes, and on reel to reel (Revox) with a variety of hiss and pop supression.

I had hoped someone else had experienced the Olive, but perhaps the market is very "niche" for such a gadget. Audiophiles are notorious for liking gadgets. My dad went through four amplifies in a five year period before he settled on Macintosh. (Not the PC, the Hi Fi.)

I don't know what "a vinyl enthusiast is" but I know how much I like the LP's I own. Having already pared away some forgettable junk (the Psychedelic Furs, meh!) some years ago, I am down to bare essentials.

I have a few LP's that are E Bayable, but I ain't selling until Mick Jagger dies on one of them. And really, who wants a copy of the White Album, Beatles, made of White Vinyl?

Occhi