[Scott Dorsey]

In article , Trevor wrote:
On 10/02/2017 1:50 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
Note that if you wanted to, you could build the emphasis and
de-emphasis mechanically into the cutting head and phono cartridge.
It would have all manner of mechanical issues because physical
materials are imperfect, but folks did it back in the early days.

Of course, the RIAA curve was designed to approximate the natural slope
of crystal/ceramic cartridges, using simple EQ networks. As often
happens, things are chosen as much for compatibility reasons than for
ultimate performance.

Sort of, but not exactly. The idea is that you want constant displacement
(like with a piezo element) at low frequencies but you want constant velocity
(like with an electromagnetic transducer) at high frequencies.

On playback, you can deal with this using a constant displacement piezo
transducer, combined with high frequency rolloff from an RC network.
It's not _just_ the natural slope of the cartridge, although that's one
big part of it.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."