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Recording of April 1982: Williams: <I>Film Music</I>

Williams: Suites from Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestra, Zubin Mehta.
Mobile Fidelity MFSL-C.008 (cassette).

Originally released on London Records, then re-released with better sound on a Mobile Fidelity disc (now a cutout), these are stunning performances of these popular film scores, rivaling the composer's own performances of them. (Composers aren't always the best conductors of their own music, but John Williams is one who is.)

Sonically, this is simply a tour de force: Without a doubt the best commercially made…

The Flexible Firms

Some years ago, we attended a hi-fi show in New York City where one of the exhibitors was RCA Victor. Their presence there would have been forgotten were it not for the fact that their exhibit, featuring their own discs played on their own line of phonographs, was producing some of the filthiest sound at the entire show. And that, in the proverbial nutshell, is why you never see reports in Stereophile on equipment made by RCA, Philco or General Electric.

The so-called Big Manufacturers always seem to be about 10 years behind the state of the audio art. One reason for this is of course…

Analog Corner #239: Swedish Analog Technologies tonearm

Late in the fall of 1982, Los Angeles turned ugly for me. I'd finished my work on Tron and despite the Academy Award nomination for Best Sound (which went to the mixing team, not the sound supervisor), it was obvious that nothing else was coming my way anytime soon. To earn a living, I had to reinvent myself.

So there I was in Las Vegas, at the 1983 Consumer Electronics Show, schlepping heavy bags filled with press kits, each containing an audio cassette of a dozen radio commercials for a car-stereo store that I'd voiced and produced, along with a résumé-bio and endorsements from clients…

Swedish Analog Technologies tonearm Page 2

SAT supplies a pair of clampable counterweights of brass with soft alloy inlay—which you use will depend on the mass of your cartridge. To set the vertical tracking force (VTF), slide the counterweight along the arm's rear stub until you're close to the desired force, then lock it down with an Allen key. A lockable, weighted screw that protrudes from the end of the stub permits easy, precise fine-tuning of VTF.

Setup
The SAT tonearm comes in a Pelican case, each of its components nestled in a cutout of high-density foam. Also supplied are Allen keys, a tool for adjusting the bearing…

Analog Corner #233: Pear Audio Blue Kid Thomas turntable & Cornet 2 tonearm

Pear Audio Analogue's Peter Mezek can keep you up all night spinning fascinating turntable tales. Had my mind not been numbed by Sunday evening, October 12, the last day of the 2014 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, I might have insisted that he do just that.

Over dinner that evening he regaled Pear Audio's North American importer, Michael Vamos of Audio Skies, and me with turntable stories dating back to the late 1970s and the Linn Sondek LP12, which, until the early '80s, he distributed in Czechoslovakia. In the mid-'80s, Mezek was involved in the development and distribution of the Rational…

Swedish Analog Technologies tonearm Specifications

Sidebar: Specifications

Description: 9"-long tonearm with carbon-fiber arm tube. Pivot-to-spindle distance: 212.2mm. Overhang: 22.8mm. Effective length: 235mm.
Price: $28,000.
Manufacturer: Swedish Analog Technologies, Gothenburg, Sweden. Tel: (46) 736 846 452. Web: www.swedishat.com

Pear Audio Blue Kid Thomas turntable & Cornet 2 tonearm Page 2

A heavy brass cylinder press-fitted inside a curved plastic collar is used to set the vertical tracking force (VTF). It's simple, but it makes setting a precise VTF somewhat difficult. Antiskating is set with a lever and sliding weight on one side of the armtube that exert a force on a second lever on the other side of the tube.

In short, while every parameter of the Cornet 2 is adjustable, a few are not easily set—the usual tradeoff in a moderately priced arm.

I found Pear Analogue's description of the Cornet 2 long on hyperbole and short on technical detail:…

Pear Audio Blue Kid Thomas turntable & Cornet 2 tonearm Specifications

Sidebar: Specifications

Description: Two-speed, belt-drive turntable with unipivot tonearm. Speeds: 331/3 & 45rpm. Tonearm: length, 10"; spindle to pivot, 222mm; effective length, 239mm; effective mass, 12.50gm.
Dimensions: 19.75" (505mm) W by 6" (155mm) H by 14" (360mm) D. Weight: Not noted.

Price: Kid Howard: $5995 without tonearm. Cornet 2: $2195. Add $1995 for an outboard power supply. Purchased as a package, the Kid Thomas, Cornet 2, and Bastin power supply cost $9995 (a $190 discount) or $7995 (a $195 discount) without the Bastin supply. Approximate number of…

Fire and Ice

Fifteen years ago, Kasey Chambers was quite a story: A 25-year old Australian backwoods girl who grew up in a hippie/vagabond family that hunted foxes, knew their Johnny Cash and Hank Williams and lived in the wild for most of the year. When she launched her solo career in 2000, and became an Americana star in the USA with the release of The Captain, her songwriting ability, her Dolly Parton-meets-Lucinda Williams voice and a sagely, at times sepia, worldview all seemed fresh and beyond her years.

Now 38, divorced, a mom of three and dating a 26-year old musician, Chambers is back with…

Classical Live on Google Play Music

In a major plus for the accessibility of classical music on the web, Google Play Music recently launched its Classical Live initiative. Through an exclusive contract with five major symphony orchestras—Boston Symphony Orchestra and new Music Director Andris Nelsons, The Cleveland Orchestra and Music Director Franz Welser-Möst, London Symphony Orchestra and Sir John Eliot Gardiner, New York Philharmonic and Music Director Alan Gilbert, and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam and Music Director Mariss Jansons—the organizations will offer live recordings for download and streaming…