Lacquer cuts sounding very bright

[pizzahotline]

I'm cutting lacquers on a Neumann VMS80 and have been noticing for a while that whatever I cut sounds slightly brighter. Even lots of subtractive EQ and de-essing within a DAW. Even when I process some audio in a DAW and think it might sound dull it seems to sound brighter when I listen back to the lacquer. Could this be due to the playback? As in, cartridge, tunrtable, phono preamp conbo?

I listen to my test cuts on either a Shure m447 or Ortofon Concorde MKII Mix.

I'm interested to know what other people use for playback and what gear people reccomend?

[Phinster]

If you have a SAL 74 B..there is a pickup equalizer which is usually calibrated using the NAB test disc and a Shure V15 III I assume you use the SME arm on the lathe

this will give you a fair idea of the response...there is also a 17k adjustment on the cutter amps...if you cut hf tones not drawing more than .4 amperes and switch

between 1k and 17k, you should have an idea of the hf response...hope this helps...