Graham Slee Accession MC/PSU1

According to Paul Szabady of the Stereo Times: "The soundstage always exceeded the boundaries of the speaker placement, and with the higher performance front-ends, the boundaries of the listening room itself. The ambience of the recording venue was always captured with a refreshing clarity and orienting naturalness, and instrument placement was so precise that it triggered synaesthetic visual response. Music-making, as with the MM Accession, was direct and faithful, completely devoid of artistic distortion."

The Accession MC (and MM) answer the age old question: "wouldn't a constant EQ slope be better?"

Yes it would! You see, RIAA EQ is a compromise built on the limitations of the 1950s, when one problem created another. And that's all because of the cartridge...

Simply put, magnetic cartridges don't have a flat output. News to you? Well it would be, as you've always been told different. Your cartridge might have come with a plot showing you how flat its output is? But they use a constant velocity test record!

The cartridge output actually rises by 60dB (one thousand times) between 20Hz and 20kHz. And to make it so valves could cope, RIAA obliged by putting a kink right in the middle of the record's frequency response and some boost in the lower bass. And it's been like that ever since, and probably always will.

You have a non-flat cartridge reproducing a non-flat record, all designed for 1950s reproducers, and you're spending a fortune expecting great results...?

Right to this day phono stages apply cut as frequencies increase, curtailing it for a couple of octaves in the mids (the RIAA "kink"), then continuing until some cut-off point. They treat the entire signal as if it's "the recording curve" (which it isn't). And each manufacturer has a preference for doing it actively, or passively, or both, or splitting the curve, and so on...