Gramophone Dreams

Gramophone Dreams #21: EMT, Koetsu, Miyajima

Herb Reichert Apr 05, 2018 First Published: Apr 05, 2018

I spent a snowy New York City evening at Rhapsody Music & Cinema, talking with the proprietor, Bob Visintainer, and watching my friend Michael Trei install a Lyra Etna SL moving-coil cartridge in a Graham Engineering Phantom III tonearm mounted on a TechDAS Air Force 3 turntable tethered to a Zesto Tessera phono stage. Every wall was lined with big, floorstanding speakers, all of them expensive. On the main stage that day were Alta Audio's Hestia Titaniums ($32,000/pair).

Gramophone Dreams Phono Preamp Reviews Turntable Reviews

Gramophone Dreams #20: Lounge Audio & MoFi UltraDeck

Herb Reichert Feb 08, 2018 First Published: Feb 08, 2018

In my October 2017 column I reported on two turntables, the Palmer 2.5 and AMG Giro G9, each costing $10,000 and up, depending on ancillaries. It wasn't that I wanted to get all Mikey Fremer Uptown on you; I wanted to refine my listening skills and familiarize my senses with what my own humble system would sound like with a pair of world-class record players.

Audacious Audio Gramophone Dreams Headphone Reviews

Gramophone Dreams #19: HiFi Man Susvara headphones

Herb Reichert Nov 28, 2017 First Published: Nov 28, 2017

I spend my days comparing cartridges and speaker stands, arguing about imaging and microphone placement, speculating about DAC filters, and lately, sometimes, very secretly listening to headphones connected not to commercially available headphone amplifiers but directly to the outputs of basic tubed and solid-state power amplifiers. No person in his right mind would or should try thisit's too easy to destroy a pair of delicate, expensive headphones. But for me, it's been worth the risk.

Gramophone Dreams Turntable Reviews

Gramophone Dreams#18: AMG Giro turntable

Herb Reichert Oct 03, 2017 First Published: Oct 03, 2017

It's get-ting bet-ter all the time (it can't get no worse)John Lennon & Paul McCartney

Remasterings of recordings make me angrythey mess with my memories of the songs I love, especially songs from the 1960s that I played in my bedroom on a cheap Garrard turntable through Lafayette speakers. Like my first girlfriend, these songs permanently entered my psyche and modified my DNA.

Gramophone Dreams Headphone Reviews

Gramophone Dreams #17: Abyss AB-1266 Phi headphones

Herb Reichert Jul 18, 2017 First Published: Jul 18, 2017

Recently, a friend played me a masterpiece: Ike & Tina Turner's River DeepMountain High, arranged by Jack Nitzsche and produced by Phil Spector (LP, A&M SP 4178). It sounded terrible: murky, distant, with badly booming bass. Even before the first track was over, we both laughed and called it a night.

Nevertheless, I went home obsessed with Tina's inspired singing and Spector's infamous Wall of Sound production.

Gramophone Dreams Headphone Reviews

Gramophone Dreams #16: Sony & AudioQuest headphones

Herb Reichert May 23, 2017 First Published: May 23, 2017

As much as I delight in pagan dreams of sweetly perfumed garden nymphs, I'm embarrassed to admit that my mind also drifts in pleasant reveries whenever I hear the words research and development in the same sentence. I am by nature a greasy gearhead. The idea of taking well-considered steps of engineering to analyze and possibly improve the operation of any electrical or mechanical system never fails to get my imaginative juices flowing. This is why I've spent decades fascinated by perfectionist audio: I like watching and participating in its edgy, eccentric evolution.

Gramophone Dreams Headphone Reviews Powerline Accessory Reviews

Gramophone Dreams #15: AudioQuest Niagara 1000, HiFiMan HE1000 V2

Herb Reichert Mar 30, 2017 First Published: Mar 30, 2017

Some of our readers seem to believe that the essence of high-quality audio is disclosed primarily by science, and not by dreamy, bodice-ripping adventures that take place on plush carpets behind closed doors. Perhaps they're right. Unfortunately, I have had no personal experiences that confirm that hypothesis.

Budget Component Reviews Gramophone Dreams Turntable Reviews

Gramophone Dreams #14: Rega Planar 3

Herb Reichert Jan 31, 2017 First Published: Jan 31, 2017

UK, 1976: Upon its release, Rega Research's original Planar 3 turntable became the poor man's Linn Sondek LP12. It opened a gateway of affordability to the exotic world of high-quality British record players. Forty years later, the new Planar 3 turntable and its "light and rigid" engineering aesthetic, as conceived by Rega founder Roy Gandy, still occupy an admirably working-class, pro-music position in an audio world increasingly populated by gold-plated tonearms and quarter-ton turntables.

Gramophone Dreams Headphone Reviews

Gramophone Dreams #13: Audeze The King & Focal Elear

Herb Reichert Nov 29, 2016 First Published: Nov 29, 2016

My passion for listening to music through headphones is fueled by the enhanced sense of intimacy and extra feeling of connectedness I experience in rediscovering recordings I already love. You know the old audiophile cliché: It's like hearing my record collection for the first time. High-quality headphones provide a sharper-than-box-speaker lens that lets me experience lyrics, melodies, and instrumental textures more close-up and magnified.

Gramophone Dreams

Gramophone Dreams #12

Herb Reichert Oct 06, 2016 First Published: Oct 06, 2016

When you get old and gray and all them shoot-'em-up dudes doe wanna ride wit you no mo, don't fretyou can still have fun. Once you're a geezer, you'll have more time to work in the garden, drink tea, buy LPs, and fiddle with your unipivot.

When I was José Cuervo young, I mocked belt-drive turntables, unipivot tonearms, and teetotalers. "You can't drink, dance, shoot up the bar, and play hot records wit no persnickety belt-drive or wobbly unipivot. You need a masculine, pro-fessional-quality direct-drive or rim-drive turntable with a sturdy a gimbal-bearing tonearm!"