U-Turn Audio’s $150 Orbit turntable

U-Turn Audio’s $150 Orbit turntable

Aug 10, 2012
Stereophile’s editorial assistant, Ariel Bitran, directed my attention to this USA Today article on an interesting turntable from U-Turn Audio, a company founded by three close friends&#151Ben Carter, Bob Hertig, and Peter Maltzan&#151all in their early 20s, who were tired of playing records on cheap USB turntables.

Ella & Louis Again, Quality Records Pressing, 45rpm

Ella & Louis Again, Quality Records Pressing, 45rpm

Aug 10, 2012
Last December, I posted a swooning review of Acoustic Sounds' two-disc, 45rpm, 200-gram Quality Records Pressings of Ella & Louis, the 1956 Verve album of duets with Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong (backed by Oscar Peterson, Ray Brown, Herb Ellis, and Buddy Rich), which may be the most delightful vocal album ever—and, in this pressing, perhaps the most amazing-sounding.

Now Chad Kassem, the reissue house's proprietor, has come out with the 1957 sequel, Ella & Louis Again (same cast, but with Louis Bellson replacing Rich on drums, for the better). It's swoon time all over. . .

The Inexpensive and Terrific Noontec Zoro

The Inexpensive and Terrific Noontec Zoro

Aug 10, 2012
This story originally appeared at InnerFidelity.com

Out of the blue I get an email from an operations and logistics manager at an electronics distribution company I've never heard of about a headphone made by a company I've never heard of claiming these $100 Chinese Beats Solo look-alike headphones will likely make it to my Wall of Fame. Yeah, right.

Then I heard them.

The Fifth Element #73

The Fifth Element #73

Aug 09, 2012
Don't waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good.—Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Fantasy Symphony Season competition, announced in this column in February, has been a smashing success—as far as I'm concerned, it's the most worthwhile write-in competition yet. The 13 winning entries and one hors-concours laureate are posted in the follow-up to February's column on Stereophile's website. The update lists the compositions in each winning Fantasy Symphony Season entry. I created a spreadsheet to determine the most popular composers and works in the winning entries.

The Entry Level #20

The Entry Level #20

Aug 09, 2012
It was another flawlessly beautiful spring morning, and I was in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, to help John Atkinson pack up the Lansche Audio 5.1 loudspeakers ($41,000/pair). John had only just completed his listening and bench tests (see his review in the July issue), and was not ready to let go of the lovely Lansches—but the speakers would be picked up by a trucking company that afternoon and sent to our cover photographer, Eric Swanson, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Each Lansche measures 40.9" tall by 10.1" W by 19.3" D and weighs 167.5 lbs—packing them and securing them to a shipping pallet is definitely a two-man job. In our case, that job required a lot of wheezing, a little bleeding, and just the right amount of cursing. And because it was only 11am when we met, we were obliged to accomplish the task without the aid of beer—a crying shame, if you ask me—but we handled it in our usual, manly fashion.

The Thelonious Monk Quartet: The Complete Columbia Studio Albums Collection

The Thelonious Monk Quartet: The Complete Columbia Studio Albums Collection

Aug 08, 2012
In a sense, I understand why Thelonious Monk's albums on Columbia, recorded between 1962 and 1968, have been neglected. His earlier sessions, on Blue Note, Prestige, and Riverside, were the ones where he introduced his classic songs, developed his eccentric style, and played with star-studded rhythm sections. The six quartet albums for Columbia feature a total of just six new Monk songs. And they find him playing with a working band of accompanists—no John Coltrane, Coleman Hawkins, Johnny Griffin, Art Blakey, or Roy Haynes here.
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