"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
. ..
Now where's the specs on the cutting lathe though :-(

The cutting lathe probably performs better than the
user's cartridge, etc.

I'm not so sure about that myself. I'm sure there were
worse cutting heads than my Shure V15VMR, and there are
FAR more expensive cartridges available.

Or there were and probably still are some bad cutting heads, but most that
were used to produce most records were pretty good.

Yes, and $1,000 cartridges are pretty good. The question is HOW good at the
time they are used.
It was my experience that they were not always replaced as often as they
should be. Trying to reduce costs is not a new concept.
A more common problem was trying to make each stamper last far longer than
optimum though. And using crappy vinyl compounds, and a hundred other
problems some seem capable of forgetting.

In fact half
speed mastering was to reduce the deficiencies of the
cutting lathes,

Sort of. Half speed mastering mostly addressed HF losses and excess
heating
in the cutting heads.

Sort of? Aren't those deficiencies?
BTW there are some other benefits though, such as less groove
flow/deformation around the cutter.

t a cartridge doesn't need to cut a
groove as it goes. (although some do :-)

That may seem to be intuitively clear, but there are some hidden details.
One hidden detail is that it is quite easy for a cutter to create a groove
that can't be properly tracked by *any* cartridge.

Sure, including those used to test the master. One would hope it is
rejected, but amazingly some pretty bad examples were produced in days gone
by.
Yet the vinyl brigade insists that only CD mastering is crook :-)

MrT.