An anonymous person commented as follows about the 17dx he bought recently:
I think it’s worth mentioning here that when it comes to cartridges, not only are we rarely in a position to demo a cartridge that we don’t necessarily have to keep, but even if could remove a cartridge we’ve tried and return it, the installation process can be a significant deterrent to doing that.
Plus, as ab_ba points out, that cartridge is likely to like some of our records. So what do we do? We just end up playing those records more often and buying more records like them so we have more records that our catridge likes. IOW, we adapt to the circumstances.
When one day we put on a record that we used to love and discover we don’t love it so much, and we realize it’s the cartridge that doesn’t love it, some of us will do what I did and buy a Dynavector 17dx from Better Records because we can then rest assured that anything that’s on that record that’s lovable, or not so lovable, the 17dx is going to show it to us either way.
I repied:
Dear Sir (if I may assume your gender),
Well said. The reason we have an entire section devoted to test records is so that audiophiles can find out what the strengths and weaknesses of their equipment might be. Whether the relatively few audiophiles who choose to test themselves with these recordings will go on to fix the problems they find is something we can only speculate about.
Most of the audiophiles whose systems I critiqued didn’t seem to appreciate what I had to say and none as I recall acted on my ideas for improvement.
I am glad you like what your 17dx does for your system. Its output is ruler flat, and that is its biggest benefit for those of us who want to hear our records sounding they way they actually do sound, “lovable” or “unlovable,” as the case may be.
It has been my experience that many audiophiles are not in favor of removing mostly-euphonic colorations from their systems. This is especially true when it results in the imperfections and shortcomings they have failed to address, or even acknowledge, are exposed and become irritating.
The modern Heavy Vinyl pressing tends to be overly smooth. This, judging from the sales and overall customer satisfaction of such records, must be helping to solve some of the problems in the systems of those who have found these pressings and their artificially adjusted tonal balance to their liking.
Accurate playback is not the be-all and end-all for everyone in our hobby. Some people just want to play a record for enjoyment, and if the colorations or limitations of their system helps them to do that, I say more power to them.
It’s not what you want and it’s not what I want, but clearly the audiophile community has outvoted us and proceeded down that road.
For those who want to make progress in the quality of our playback and the specific pressings of the recordings we choose play, you and I both know that road leads to a dead end.