Trying to understand the turntable/vinyl world...

[Robin L]

Orchestra music is a good reason why people will prefer to buy vinyl over CD when cost, time and space isn't an issue. You can give tons of scientific research. Yes digital is perfect. Recording engineers will tell you Red Book is not enough. Analogy tape is closer to mic feed than direct ADC. Vinyl is closer to analog tape than CD. That why SACD and DVD-A were born to address this issue.

Recording engineer here [recordist is more like it, but still got paid to record people].

None of what you wrote here is true. Some recording engineers think Redbook is enough, some don't. Higher bit rates are useful for production/postproduction but once a track is normalized 16bits pretty much covers the dynamic range of music played back in domestic environments. In any case, most commercially issued digital recordings are limited to Redbook. More recent recordings are not limited to Redbook standards, but most people listen to music that is of a Redbook standard or less. Redbook standards represent the limits of human hearing. Analog [not "analogy"] tape is nowhere near as close to a microphone feed as an ADC/DAC chain [doesn't have to be pristine or pricy, cheap digital gear outperforms expensive analog gear]. LP playback is simply more distorted than Digital playback on multiple levels, like speed variation or pitch variation, peak warp wow, wow and flutter generated from the turntable, wow and flutter generated by a funky pressing, IGD, bad pressings, noisy surfaces and short running times. SACDs and DVD-A are great carriers of multichannel music, but after all is said and done, it's the quality of the original recording and mastering that determines sound quality of the final product, and sound happens within the audible frequencies, not the ultrasonic frequencies. In any case, SACD and DVD-A were born because record executives realized that CD was living on borrowed time, something had to be offered that could claim to be an improvement. As both turned out to be market failures, the record companies had to turn to other ways to generate profits.

 

[kongwee]

Recording engineer here [recordist is more like it, but still got paid to record people].

None of what you wrote here is true. Some recording engineers think Redbook is enough, some don't. Higher bit rates are useful for production/postproduction but once a track is normalized 16bits pretty much covers the dynamic range of music played back in domestic environments. In any case, most commercially issued digital recordings are limited to Redbook. More recent recordings are not limited to Redbook standards, but most people listen to music that is of a Redbook standard or less. Redbook standards represent the limits of human hearing. Analog [not "analogy"] tape is nowhere near as close to a microphone feed as an ADC/DAC chain [doesn't have to be pristine or pricy, cheap digital gear outperforms expensive analog gear]. LP playback is simply more distorted than Digital playback on multiple levels, like speed variation or pitch variation, peak warp wow, IGD, bad pressings, noisy surfaces and short running times. SACDs and DVD-A are great carriers of multichannel music, but after all is said and done, it's the quality of the original recording and mastering that determines sound quality of the final product, and sound happens within the audible frequencies, not the ultrasonic frequencies. In any case, SACD and DVD-A were born because record executives realized that CD was living on borrowed time, something had to be offered that could claim to be an improvement. As both turned out to be market failures, the record companies had to turn to other ways to generate profits.

It depend on what generation of recording engineer they are and how much they touch analog recording. Generally those over 20 years of veteran will prefer analog takes not taking the account of price, time and efforts. They faced the transition of analog recording to fully digitised. Producer at the same generation know the infinity loss transition to Red Books as end product. It is easily to understand the infinity loss in digital. One sample to another is not a smooth edge of sine wave in 1/44100 second. It is nature does not have a smooth edge. Likewise 1/65536 step value of 16 bits that give 96 dB range. If you calculate absolute value of 96 dB.It is way off 65536 step value. Vinyl is theoretically limitless. All depending on physical. Can capture more than smooth edge of sine wave in 1/44100 or even 1/170000 second regardless of other issue like static noise, hiss, cracks.....etc. Also it goes as much as 20 bits depth value of digital equivalent. Analog master tape is way higher than vinyl.

On other hand and you have DSD doing PDM in 2.8 mhz rather than PCM which Sony claim more analog like. The data size able to fit into DVD disc. SACD was gaining over DVD-A till iPod kill everything.

 

[audio2design]

It depend on what generation of recording engineer they are and how much they touch analog recording. Generally those over 20 years of veteran will prefer analog takes not taking the account of price, time and efforts. They faced the transition of analog recording to fully digitised. Producer at the same generation know the infinity loss transition to Red Books as end product. It is easily to understand the infinity loss in digital. One sample to another is not a smooth edge of sine wave in 1/44100 second. It is nature does not have a smooth edge. Likewise 1/65536 step value of 16 bits that give 96 dB range. If you calculate absolute value of 96 dB.It is way off 65536 step value. Vinyl is theoretically limitless. All depending on physical. Can capture more than smooth edge of sine wave in 1/44100 or even 1/170000 second regardless of other issue like static noise, hiss, cracks.....etc. Also it goes as much as 20 bits depth value of digital equivalent. Analog master tape is way higher than vinyl.

On other hand and you have DSD doing PDM in 2.8 mhz rather than PCM which Sony claim more analog like. The data size able to fit into DVD disc. SACD was gaining over DVD-A till iPod kill everything.

Well that is mainly a whole lot of nonsense.

 

[audio2design]

Orchestra music is a good reason why people will prefer to buy vinyl over CD when cost, time and space isn't an issue. You can give tons of scientific research. Yes digital is perfect. Recording engineers will tell you Red Book is not enough. Analogy tape is closer to mic feed than direct ADC. Vinyl is closer to analog tape than CD. That why SACD and DVD-A were born to address this issue.

Obvious you have never heard a microphone into tape and digital. Just stop. The hole is already too deep.

 

[kongwee]

Obvious you have never heard a microphone into tape and digital. Just stop. The hole is already too deep.

Yes. Only brief moment of time, just for fun. That studio demonstrated to me.

 

[Leporello]

Vinyl is theoretically limitless.

The only limitless thing about vinyl seem to be these false arguments and misunderstandings following from them. Just stop.

 

[charleski]

One sample to another is not a smooth edge of sine wave in 1/44100 second.

Just no. Unfortunately this betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the way digital audio works. If you want to hear what one crusty old vintage recording engineer has to say about this nonsense, look here. He makes one mistake, though, in that it is possible to find bad DACs that produce the classic stair-step pattern, but they’re expensive ‘audiophile’ models that are fundamentally flawed.

 

[kongwee]

Just no. Unfortunately this betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the way digital audio works. If you want to hear what one crusty old vintage recording engineer has to say about this nonsense, look here. He makes one mistake, though, in that it is possible to find bad DACs that produce the classic stair-step pattern, but they’re expensive ‘audiophile’ models that are fundamentally flawed.

There are a bunch of professional discussing this issue.

24 bit/96khz vs 24 bit/192khz - Gearspace.com

Please what's the difference between the 24 bit/96khz and the 24 bit/192khz sound resolutions. And how does it affect my recording and production. Than

gearspace.com

For me, just push to 24 bit 96kHz playback, that my limit for my DAW and for youtube mv too.

 

[Robin L]

It depend on what generation of recording engineer they are and how much they touch analog recording. Generally those over 20 years of veteran will prefer analog takes not taking the account of price, time and efforts.

No they won't. You're talking about 50 years ago. 20 years ago digital options were the norm, analog recording was for audio cultists. Digital was the assumed default 20 years ago, as it is now.

They faced the transition of analog recording to fully digitised. Producer at the same generation know the infinity loss transition to Red Books as end product. It is easily to understand the infinity loss in digital.

"Infinity loss"? No. There is no "Infinite" recording/playback medium. As the self-noise of vinyl hovers around 60db, there simply is no comparison of quality between analog and digital record-replay. There's a 30db gap between the two formats, don't kid yourself. If you had experience in recording, you would know just how much analog recording sucks. There's a lot of digital recordings that have been bounced to analog tape for dynamic compression and other distortions that can be musically useful. But there's no such thing as "infinity loss transition", you simply gathered together a string of words you liked and then pretended that you know what you're talking about [which you don't].

One sample to another is not a smooth edge of sine wave in 1/44100 second. It is nature does not have a smooth edge. Likewise 1/65536 step value of 16 bits that give 96 dB range. If you calculate absolute value of 96 dB.It is way off 65536 step value. Vinyl is theoretically limitless.

No, it's not. LPs have a "brick wall" of self-noise, limiting the info that lands in the groove. This limitation is particularly severe in the highest and lowest frequencies, where it's easy to go over the inherent limitations of cutting a signal into what will be the stamper.

All depending on physical. Can capture more than smooth edge of sine wave in 1/44100 or even 1/170000 second regardless of other issue like static noise, hiss, cracks.....etc. Also it goes as much as 20 bits depth value of digital equivalent. Analog master tape is way higher than vinyl.

None of this is true. This notion of digital recording/replay being unable to properly capture a sine wave is pure bullshit, indicating a failure to understand the Nyquist theory or its application in audio compared to the known and audible distortions of analog recording or LP replay.

On other hand and you have DSD doing PDM in 2.8 mhz rather than PCM which Sony claim more analog like. The data size able to fit into DVD disc. SACD was gaining over DVD-A till iPod kill everything.

Yeah, that didn't work out for Sony, in large part because DSD can't be edited without being turned to into PCM. Also, High-rez is not a meaningful slice of revenue for the majors, they're more interested in streaming options anyway, and how to manage all that data without tying up all their money in storage and servers.

 

[BDWoody]

One sample to another is not a smooth edge of sine wave in 1/44100 second.

Ok, you are in a bit over your head here...

Start with the Monty video.

Now watch it again, then see if that helps. I'm going to give you a week off from this thread, as you seem to feel a need to answer everyone with erroneous answers.

 

[BDWoody]

Curious, how did you test tracking ability between this style of arm vs others?

No formal tests, just played records with no hassle. I've done needle drop recordings from both, but haven't done any kind of in depth comparison.

 

[Robin L]

Orchestra music is a good reason why people will prefer to buy vinyl over CD when cost, time and space isn't an issue. You can give tons of scientific research. Yes digital is perfect. Recording engineers will tell you Red Book is not enough. Analogy tape is closer to mic feed than direct ADC. Vinyl is closer to analog tape than CD. That why SACD and DVD-A were born to address this issue.

One more thing. I made a fair number of recordings of orchestral music. I also have been collecting recordings of orchestral music for over 50 years. There's a number of sonic differences between "Golden Age Stereo" recordings, like the RCA Victor "Living Stereo" series and the Mercury "Living Prescence" series and modern digital recordings of orchestral music. I collected Shaded Dogs and MLP recordings on vinyl, CD and SACD. There's a thickening and smoothing of texture in these old recordings. The sounds of massed strings on these recordings, or the sound of string sections on record from 1954-1970, are nowhere as open as reality or digital recordings of the same. Big difference between the monolithic sound of vintage stereo and the far more diffuse and delicate sound of reality. These old recordings had their dynamics adjusted on the fly via gain riding, where a tech reads a score and adjusts level accordingly. The recordings tended to have the levels pushed hard to override the self-noise of the analog tape.

Harry Pearson and the notion of "The Absolute Sound" pointed to these recordings as the absolute state of the art. But production decisions limited the potential dynamic range of these recordings. The levels of distortion on these recordings are quite high, particularly in the peaks. But people with limited exposure to the real sound of the orchestra would compare a digital production, without the distortion or limiting of the "Golden Age" recordings and come to the conclusion that an accurate representation of orchestral sound is wrong.

An important bottom line to note: CD sales were first driven by Classical music, where the virtues of Digital record/replay are more important than with pop music. Having over an hour of continuous playing time could cover the durations of most classical compositions. IGD---inner groove distortion---is more of a problem with classical music than pop as the dynamic peak of most Classical music comes at the very end of a work and IGD is worst just before the deadwax. And the self-noise of LPs is a bigger problem with music of wide dynamic range than the usually highly compressed sound of most pop music.

Orchestral music is one of the big reasons for CD's initial sucess. Classical music lovers, for the most part, voted with their wallets. CD won.

 

[Robin L]

Hi, all, well, It seems to me the TT world is very difficult to understand. It seems very wild world.

Correct.

In 2019 I bought a "cheap" AT LP120X turntable (not really the same as AT LP120 but cheaper)
I bought it going against several people's advice (online and offline)
The general (strong) advice was "any new under $500 is total, aboslute crap, will sound horrible and will last a week or two.... For $300, or less, you can get a japanese/german/swiss/american made vintage tt that will be absolutely superior to any cheap chinese new tt and will last another 40 years..."

I wouldn't exactly call the AT LP120 crap. In many ways, it meets the current limitations of playback for most [not al] LPs. For around $300, not bad.

For some period of time I tried to get a japanese/german/swiss/american made vintage tt for $300 or less but it was very difficult and somewhat risky. I did not know what I was buying. So many variables and stuff not easy to understand. Lots of online sellers stated "in working condition". What does that mean? Yeah, my junk car I had when I was 18 years old was in working conditions... just not working properly. Plus, more stuff to buy... cartridge, stylus, mats, arms, covers, preamps, ball bearings, etc, etc.
So I got tired of hunting for vintage TT so I commited heresy and crime: bought a new "cheap" Chinese TT (Hanpin TT).
I did it knowingly such AT LP120X was labeled "absolute junk" (to say the least) in every single forum.

The more experience one has with Vintage turntables, the more "junk" one encounters. Most turntables were built to cost and do not improve with age. In many cases, critical replacement parts for these turntables are unavailable. Besides that, if one enters into the world of vintage turntables, they have already committed considerable time to tweaking. If one finds that enjoyable or not depends on the person. I no longer find tweaking with turntables fun, but that is an essential aspect of the format.

Now first of all, why is it that you need $500 to buy a decent TT when you can buy a DVD player for about $40??
And a $40 DVD player will play CDs that most likely will sound superior than a vinyl on a $500 TT?
I don't get why a mass produced TT is far more expensive compared to similar mass produced CD/DVD player.
Is it really far more difficult/expensive to build a TT than to build a DVD?
Do you need more mechanical precision?
I have heard DVD/CD technology requires very precise mechanical pieces.
Sorry to ask these questions, Im probably very ignorant.

I'm a fan of a very cheap Digital Audio Player, the Fiio M3K. No moving parts. The levels of mechanical precision you speak of are meaningless with a DAP or streaming from a computer. There just aren't that many moving parts. The degree of precision required for good sound lies mostly in the DAC, and that's mostly a solved problem. On the other hand, high precision for speed control for turntables will cost you money. One of the Technics recent 'tables will have better wow and flutter than the AT-120, but the difference might not be auudible.

TT technology is probably 100 years old so it is absolutely mature technology

Most of the basic tech is older, more like 130 years old.

Tons of money have been invested in TT technology research for about a century.
We live in very advanced industrial Capitalism which means mature technologies can only get cheaper, not more expensive.
Back in the 50s or 60s you had to pay premium for high fidelity.... Is it still true in 2021?

It is not as true in 2022 as it was in 1972. Digital sources offer a better source than turntables and are, overall, cheaper. Same with servers and streaming. Speaker design has advanced considerably. As a slice of one's income, good audio is cheaper now than it was 50 years ago,

Now, I fully understand $500 are peanuts.
I fully understand that a true premium TT might truly cost more than my home and my car put together (including everything inside my home like my cheap TT)

My experience with AT LP120X after more than a year of almost daily use???

I have no reason to complain. Such is my experience.

I keep reading people telling that such is a junk TT that sounds horrible and disgusting and belongs to the trash can.

Not really. But it's not a perfect turntable. If one isn't all that committed to LPs, it's a decent value proposition.

I will tell you what is junk sound to me: my laptop speakers; my logitech desktop speakers (though these Logitech speakers are a real improvement over my laptop speakers); my cellphone speaker; a boombox; a bluetooth speaker (big or small) and the like...... all that sounds bad to me but don't matter because such stuff are not really made for music listening.

Laptop speakers are ghastly.

My AT LP120X connected to entry level amp and entry level speakers does not sound like junk to me... My laptop certainly does...

I have personally listened to some Technics/Dual/Lenco (and others) TTs and yes boy they sound great but owners of these TTs buy very expensive carts and very expensive stylus and have them connected to multi thousand dollar preamps/amps then connected to multi thousand dollar speakers and dedicated rooms for music listening. So it is hard to tell if such great sound is due to TT or just partially/marginally due to it.

It's mostly the speakers.

Now, about the love for vinyl.

I like vinyl, but I do not consider it to be worth investing thousands of dollars.

I have about 400 vinyl. About 350 are rock/pop and about 50 are classical music.

I never play classical on vinyl. It is my opinion that CD (digital music) is the best thing that happened to classical music. I have hundreds of classical music CDs and I think digital is the way to go for classical music.

Yep. But please don't call them "vinyl". They are Long Playing records, aka LPs.

About rock/pop sometimes I have some mixed feelings but I still consider digital the best format for all kind of music, specially for classical music.

I might be wrong but I truly consider digital is very elegant and superior technology for all kind of music.

I can certainly say I prefer some music/songs played on vinyl rather than on CD. But this is a personal preference. Not a scientific statement. I specially like Hendrix or Rory Gallagher on vinyl but not saying it sounds better than on CD. I just like it more, not saying that it sounds better.

Sometimes the LP experience captures qualities that digital replay doesn't. File under "euphonic distortion".

I still buy inexpensive old used vinyl... Nostalgia is a powerful force indeed.

And that sort of thing can be a fun hobby, a treasure hunt that never ends.

I guess most of my vinyl are in ok shape. Some are in very good shape. Some are in bad shape.

Im not exactly new to turntables or vinyl. Im just back at it.

I just did not know it was a very complicated world....

Back in the days I never gave much importance to it as I just bought turntables and vinyl records for the music and that was it...

Regards!!

I didn't get too serious about turntables until about 20/30 years in. I had over 2000 LPs at one point, many collectibles. Back in the day, the LP was the point, the turntable was an appliance.

 

[JP]

Besides that, if one enters into the world of vintage turntables, they have already committed considerable time to tweaking.

Not necessarily.

 

[dlaloum]

Besides that, if one enters into the world of vintage turntables, they have already committed considerable time to tweaking.

Not necessarily - there were some superb TT's made that were either T4P native or fitted with T4P adapters, became completely ease of use centric - no tweaking, no adjustment (or negligible)

Especially the Linear trackers... - the best of Technics, or Revox, Sony, etc...

Plug and play - some even came with a remote, so you could either select the tracks remotely, or you could raise / lower and move the arm to where you wanted it on the record.

I still have the Revox (and its remote) - altough designed as a standard mounting - in its late marketed versions, it was fitted as standard with a T4P adapter... I have fitted such and adapter (and gone through the pain of adjusting it accordingly) - and have a collection of cartridges that I can swap in/out .... easy plug and play....

Or someone could pick up one of the completely proprietary (and very much plug and play) B&O turntables.... great performers, stunning looks, and very much under-rated.

Vinyl needn't be "tweaky" - it's just that a lot of us "audiophools" like it that way

 

[sergeauckland]

Not necessarily - there were some superb TT's made that were either T4P native or fitted with T4P adapters, became completely ease of use centric - no tweaking, no adjustment (or negligible)

Especially the Linear trackers... - the best of Technics, or Revox, Sony, etc...

Plug and play - some even came with a remote, so you could either select the tracks remotely, or you could raise / lower and move the arm to where you wanted it on the record.

I still have the Revox (and its remote) - altough designed as a standard mounting - in its late marketed versions, it was fitted as standard with a T4P adapter... I have fitted such and adapter (and gone through the pain of adjusting it accordingly) - and have a collection of cartridges that I can swap in/out .... easy plug and play....

Or someone could pick up one of the completely proprietary (and very much plug and play) B&O turntables.... great performers, stunning looks, and very much under-rated.

Vinyl needn't be "tweaky" - it's just that a lot of us "audiophools" like it that way

I would also add turntables like my EMT, which were supplied as a system including cartridge and replay amps, and had minimal adjustments necessary. My AEG-Telefunken is a little more tweaky insofar as one has to fit and align a cartridge, but apart from that, not much more than the EMT. Broadcast turntables just had to work, and if they needed regular tweaking, they wouldn't have been acceptable. There was enough tweaking necessary just to keep the tape recorders working properly...

S.

 

[MattHooper]

The idea that

Orchestra music is a good reason why people will prefer to buy vinyl over CD when cost, time and space isn't an issue. You can give tons of scientific research. Yes digital is perfect. Recording engineers will tell you Red Book is not enough. Analogy tape is closer to mic feed than direct ADC. Vinyl is closer to analog tape than CD. That why SACD and DVD-A were born to address this issue.

That's a particularly strange claim for reasons others have already given.

Classical lovers were probably the earliest enthusiasts of CD - the dynamic range of orchestral music could finally be more faithfully reproduced, no more suffering through record hiss and artifacts during quiet parts (or distortion during loud parts), finally no more pitch variation (especially annoying with piano) etc, etc. My father in law is a massive classical music fan, had a huge record collection and he happily ditched it fast as he could for CDs.

That's not to say someone can't enjoy classical music on LPs of course. I very much do (and I have a large collection of soundtracks on vinyl).
But it doesn't help anyone to perpetuate misleading technical claims about analog and digital.

I started my career in film sound recording on analog and with the exception of maybe a caveat or two, digital was a blessing compared to analog limitations.

 

[anmpr1]

The more experience one has with Vintage turntables, the more "junk" one encounters. Most turntables were built to cost and do not improve with age. In many cases, critical replacement parts for these turntables are unavailable.

For the non-technical oriented hobbyist (who doesn't own a Fluke, a soldering iron, and isn't familiar with capacitor/IC substitution), a strictly 'mechanical' record player is probably their best bet if they are looking at vintage. Prior to about the mid '70s, most consumer turntables, were electrically 'simple', without any sort of servo error correction (quartz PLL came along later).

The down-side of this is that speed drift cannot be totally avoided, especially if the record player has variable speed capability, where the belt or idler may 'slip' on the tapered pulley. If one has perfect pitch, they might notice it over the course of the record. I don't, but some might.

There are many old 'idler' drive record players out there, but most of those I've seen are in very bad shape. And many, because of their intrinsic design, are just not worth refurbing. Better to buy something inexpensive, new, which generally will get you as good if not better sonic quality.

If you are looking for a changer, which is sort of a unique thing today, but was once common, it's more of a crap shoot. These tend to be mechanical nightmares of Rube Goldbergish design. That said, mechanisms were often metal, with good linkages, making them last forever. The 'unobtanium' part tends to be the idler reduction wheel. These are are difficult (if not impossible) to source. I use a 50 year old Garrard Z-100, but to its credit the idler wheel still works as new. I am surprised at this. If it goes, my turntable will most likely be junked.

Reconditioning the Z-100 took hours of work, because it had to be cleaned, removing the old grease. Not hard, but not quick.

My biggest concern was finding a 'modern-day' cartridge to work with the rather high friction, multiple pivot tonearm (the arm has six pivot bearings). I found best results using a hybrid-combo: Ortofon Super OM body, and NC-E stylus, which is from their 'pro' line--a bonded elliptical that tracks at 3 grams, and is not overly compliant.

For comparison, the A/T VM740ML (a reasonably priced, high quality MM tracking at two grams) is too compliant for the Garrard arm, and mistracks (skips out of the groove) with any groove imperfections. For stackable 45rpm and EPs, the Pro S ballpoint pen stylus works OK. Perhaps something like the Grado DJ models could be an option, if you didn't want to use a pro-oriented Ortofon.

Something like a Dual 1229, with its straight gimbal arm, would probably mate better to a higher compliance cartridge.

 

[mhardy6647]

That why SACD and DVD-A were born to address this issue.

Well... not to sound cynical or anything but I am under the impression that one of the big drivers behind SACD was that it was a hard format to copy (i.e., archive, borrow, pirate, steal).

DVD-A -- I have no idea what the driver for DVD-A was.

Classical lovers were probably the earliest enthusiasts of CD - the dynamic range of orchestral music could finally be more faithfully reproduced, no more suffering through record hiss and artifacts during quiet parts (or distortion during loud parts), finally no more pitch variation (especially annoying with piano) etc, etc. My father in law is a massive classical music fan, had a huge record collection and he happily ditched it fast as he could for CDs.

Dec. 16, 1770: Beethoven's Birth in Bonn Leads to Longer CDs

1770: Ludwig van Beethoven is born to a family of musicians in Bonn, Germany. His Ninth Symphony will play a role in determining the length of the music CD. Exactly how big a role is a matter of debate. Had it not been for his untimely death in 1827, the immortal Ludwig van would today […]

www.wired.com

 

[JP]

For the non-technical oriented hobbyist (who doesn't own a Fluke, a soldering iron, and isn't familiar with capacitor/IC substitution), a strictly 'mechanical' record player is probably their best bet if they are looking at vintage.

Painting with the board brushes that we are, I can’t agree with that. 301/401 and 124 I had before were plenty tweaky, between warm-up time, speed adjustment, regular cleaning of running surfaces, etc. My SP-10 is running as good as it gets 1/4 second after pressing start, and has done so for 7+ years now, and there’s no indication that it won’t do so for decades more. Once they’re brought up to snuff it’s not like you need to chase them with a soldering iron. Granted, you need someone who knows what they’re doing.

For comparison, the A/T VM740ML (a reasonably priced, high quality MM tracking at two grams)

Seems AT have abandoned flat FR in favor of the rising response typically seen with MCs. Disappointing.