@ghdprentice I appreciate the attempt to be helpful, but I really think that the issue of how a tone arm and cartridge navigate an lp has nothing to do with phono preamp, etc. I wasn’t complaining about the quality of the sound; in fact I was intensely enjoying it when it was so rudely interrupted
. I had intended the turntable to be in my main 2 channel system, but I might just leave it where it is. I am really impressed with how it resolved the differences between the two hands. I could clearly hear the gentle growl of the bass clef and every subtle pedal effect with the many grades of pppp that Beethoven asks for. The caveat is that I have never heard a digital version of this recording. Instead of trying to collect multiple copies of a hard to obtain decades old lp, all of which may contain flaws (Columbia pressings of this period were decidedly not known for pristine vinyl and quality control, and this was probably a budget collection 3 lp set at the time) I will try to get a digital copy if for no other reason to be able to compare.