Fellow Quad enthusiasts: apologies if the answer is buried somewhere in existing threads and my search terms didn't find it. But I have been reading extensively and not found a direct answer.
My question is, I have an Ortofon 2M Black cartridge with a Shibata stylus (on a Rotel RP-855). I've read that one needs a Shibata stylus for proper CD-4 decoding. However, I have also seen references to needing a "CD-4 cartridge" although it seems others are just using cartridges not designated specifically for CD-4 as long as it has a shibata stylus. Will my Ortofon 2M Black work?
Second question is I would really prefer not to bypass my current phono preamp, but I notice that CD-4 demodulators have phono inputs, not line level (like an SQ demod would). But I've also seen that some appear to have "direct stereo out" - so do these CD-4 units basically have a bypass to output the unequalized cartridge signal to a standard stereo phono preamp when not decoding CD-4? If so, would there be any degradation if the signal path is TT->CD-4 Demodulator->standard stereo phono premap when listening to stereo recordings?
Thanks in advance for the help!
My question is, I have an Ortofon 2M Black cartridge with a Shibata stylus (on a Rotel RP-855). I've read that one needs a Shibata stylus for proper CD-4 decoding. However, I have also seen references to needing a "CD-4 cartridge" although it seems others are just using cartridges not designated specifically for CD-4 as long as it has a shibata stylus. Will my Ortofon 2M Black work?
Second question is I would really prefer not to bypass my current phono preamp, but I notice that CD-4 demodulators have phono inputs, not line level (like an SQ demod would). But I've also seen that some appear to have "direct stereo out" - so do these CD-4 units basically have a bypass to output the unequalized cartridge signal to a standard stereo phono preamp when not decoding CD-4? If so, would there be any degradation if the signal path is TT->CD-4 Demodulator->standard stereo phono premap when listening to stereo recordings?
Thanks in advance for the help!