Phono Cartridge Reviews

In my studio, I have a hand-sized wood box. It is the soundbox of an African musical instrument with a small internal volume, a pencil-sized sound hole, a bent steel bridge, and an array of eight steel wires with flattened ends—a keyboard. It is called a mbira . . . you can buy a spiffy varnished mbira at Walmart, where it is called a "Kalimba."

AnalogPlanet.com has gone live. Allan Toussaint should title an album. Elvis Costello should write a song. I'm running the website, and will continue to write this monthly column for Stereophile, as well as equipment reviews (though fewer of the latter).

I find myself appreciating more and more the way perfectionist audio—a peculiar mix of art, craft, and engineering—tends to attract idealists. Temperamentally, hi-fi people tend to be unlike people involved in the manufacture of ring-joint gaskets or digital kitchen timers—activities that, without a doubt, have their own scales of excellence.

I get nervous when I hear that an audio company I like is suddenly under new ownership. Are the new owners planning to carry forward the legacy of the company's founders, or will they try to move things in a different direction?

Aidas Svazas is an artisan residing in Lithuania's second largest city, Kaunas. Svazas started out as a cartridge repairman, and our first encounter took place when, on a friend's recommendation, I sent him a Fairchild 225-A, a mono cartridge from the 1950s, to be restored.

How was last fall for you? Mine was crazy. I traveled much of October: the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest one weekend, emceeing Chad Kassem's Blues Masters at the Crossroads Blues Festival the next, and the week after that, appearing at two Audio Advice stores, in Raleigh and Charlotte, North Carolina. From there I traveled to Los Angeles to attend a 30th-anniversary celebration for Tron at Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

Last week, a black sedan pulled up by the curb in front of my building. I recognized the driver, Richard Cirulnick, because an old audio-world buddy named Al Rhodes introduced me to him at the New York Audio Show in 2017. Since then, we've hung out a lot, especially at audio shows . . .