Her name was E. and the gentle quaver in her soft voice gave me the impression that she was nervous, anxious, young. Something about it seemed sweet, seemed sincere. Which made me want to help her more. She was calling from England, and the connection was crystal clear. I could hear her perfectly, though she was so far away. She was doing research on the high end hi-fi industry.
My first record cleaning purchases: A Hunt EDA carbon fiber brush for dry-cleaning (footnote 1), a MoFi brush for wet-cleaning, a couple bottles of MoFi fluid (Super Deep Cleaner for the really nasty records, and Super Record Wash for the plain old dirty ones), 100 Polyline inner sleeves (because of all the different options these were the least expensive per sleeve, but, at some point, I'd like to try the MoFi rice paper sleeves), and 100 4-mil outer sleeves (because 4-mil seemed just thick enough, and because I liked the packaging).
"So how many records did you buy last night?" Elizabeth asked me.
Alon Wolf can be mesmerizing. When the founder of Magico gets going on one of his favorite subjects, loudspeaker design, the strength of his convictions, depth of technical knowledge, and sureness of response are enough to hush many a skeptic into silence.
You know how life is: It's just one damn thing after another. I spent some time attempting to re-imagine this blog and I dealt with a health issue. <A HREF="http://www.sadtrombone.com/">clickfor sound effect</A> Well, I'm better now and I have some fun things (I think) in store.
We have written about HDTracks.com <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/032308hdtracks/">previously</A>, but that was before the site went public. This morning David Chesky notified <I>Stereophile</I> that it is offering, for a limited time, a <I>free</I> <A HREF="https://www.hdtracks.com/index.php?file=register">"HDTracks Ultimate Download Experience."</A>
Still, I have a long way to go before I catch up with <a href="http://www.stlbeacon.org/arts_+_life/music/vinyl_records">this young music lover</a>.
I spent yesterday at my mom's house, celebrating my sister's 14th birthday. Uncles and aunts and cousins are scattered around the house, laughing and eating and shouting at the television screen as if someone is just going to die if the Celtics don't win this game. See me and my sister sitting side by side, somehow apart from it all: She's absolutely engrossed in <i>Weird N.J., Vol.1</i> (I'm very proud of her), and I'm similarly rapt by Acoustic Sounds' "<a href="http://store.acousticsounds.com/sale.cfm?sale=undertheradar">Under the Radar</a>" list.
Reader Walter Woody realizes that caring about sound quality is nothing to be ashamed of. He asks: What is your proudest audiophile moment?
This review should have appeared more than a few months ago. When I reviewed <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/phonocartridges/987linn">Linn's Troika cartridge</A> back in the Fall of 1987, in Vol.10 No.6, Audiophile Systems also supplied me with a sample of the Linn LK1 preamplifier and the LK2 power amplifier, which I had intended to review in the due course of things. As it transpired, however, I was less than impressed with the LK2, finding, as did Alvin Gold back in Vol.9 No.2, that while it had a somewhat laid-back balance, it also suffered a pervasive "gray" coloration, which dried out recorded ambience and obscured fine detail.