With the COVID pandemic in (temporary?) decline, lots more people wore far fewer masks. In many rooms, the mask wearers amounted to exactly one: moi. Hey, I want to cover many more shows and hear far more great music before I get the opportunity to discover if the Pearly Gates are a perfect point source…
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What a show. During its four days in the MOC event center, the first two reserved for industry and press, Munich High End attracted 22,137 visitors from approximately 100 different countries. With 550 exhibitors and more than 1000 brands from 54 nations, they had plenty to hear and see.
1972 is widely praised as the most fertile year ever for rock albums, notching such classics as The Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street, David Bowie's The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, and Neil Young's Harvest. But albums released in 1973 and currently celebrating their 50th anniversary may be even better: Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, ZZ Top's Tres Hombres, and Bruce Springsteen's The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle, among others. But of all the enduring albums of '73, the most exotic, audacious, and…
Blue Note's Tone Poet audiophile vinyl reissue series, which has been written about frequently in these pages, was inaugurated in 2019 and has now reached 70+ releases, mostly reissues from the storied label's catalog with outliers from Pacific Jazz/World Pacific and United Artists and a couple of new issues thrown in. The Blue Note reissues have ranged from classics released in myriad editions since their initial LP run to music held back for years and sometimes put out only in Japan or only recently discovered and released on compact disc.
Pianist Andrew Hill, one of Blue Note's…
I wish that all who love LP playback as much as I do could hear a Thorens TD 124 or Garrard 301 or EMT 930 in their systems, but those products are subject to the vagaries of supply and demand: They are rare and pricey.—Art Dudley
I have a friend named Yale, a record producer, who lives in a capacious, art-filled SoHo loft with enormous windows, craggy wood floors, and a high, tin-tiled ceiling. I enjoy Yale's company because he has extraordinarily diverse, highly evolved taste in music, art, architecture, books, home furnishings, and hi-fi equipment.
In one part of Yale's loft, a…
Unless you buy the Solid9's optional electrical controller (above), changing speeds is a purely mechanical, "gearbox" operation: Move the stainless steel rod on the right side of the platter's edge outward, away from the platter and its bolted-down 33rpm stop and toward its 45rpm stop. How many turntables do you know that lock in the correct rotational speed with a steel bar, a cap screw, and a wrench?
Fortunately for Peter Reinders and his customers, Lenco sold millions of turntables, and the design of their motor changed little over time. So there are plenty of 'tables out…
Founded in 1978, VPI Industries appears to be one of the most successful turntable manufacturers in the world—certainly in the US. The New Jersey–based company sells turntables, tonearms, cartridges, record clamps, plinths, record cleaning machines, and a phono preamp. But that's not all. The company offers VPI-branded pillows, candles, mugs, stickers, T-shirts, and a tell-all company history, 40 Years on the Record.
And talk about turntables! From the entry-level $1499 Cliffwood to the top-of-the-line $104,000 Vanquish (found under the website's "VPI Luxury" page, accompanied by the…
Setup
Hugging the 75lb Avenger Direct turntable with platter to his chest, Mat Weisfeld marched up the steep stairs to my sky-high hacienda without breaking a sweat. I carried the tonearm, cartridge box, alignment jig tool, counterweight, and accessories. Inside my apartment, Mat positioned the turntable's three bases atop my Salamander rack, placed the turntable's large cones into the bases, and affixed the tonearm assembly and armboard to one of the large steel corner posts. He ran though some basic setup pointers and split: The meter on his cab was running. Or was it an Uber driver who…
Hugging the 75lb Avenger Direct turntable with platter to his chest, Mat Weisfeld marched up the steep stairs to my sky-high hacienda without breaking a sweat. I carried the tonearm, cartridge box, alignment jig tool, counterweight, and accessories. Inside my apartment, Mat positioned the turntable's three bases atop my Salamander rack, placed the turntable's large cones into the bases, and affixed the tonearm assembly and armboard to one of the large steel corner posts. He ran though some basic setup pointers and split: The meter on his cab was running. Or was it an Uber driver who…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Two-speed, direct-drive turntable with 3D-printed 12" FatBoy Gimbal tonearm. Platter: Aluminum and acrylic, 25lb. Motor type: ThinGap direct-drive. Motor torque: 2.68Nm/s. Startup time: 1s. Speed monitoring: 2500 pulses/revolution.
Dimensions: 18.5" (470mm) W × 10" (254mm) H × 17" (432mm) D. Weight: 75lb (34.1kg).
Serial number of unit reviewed: Not assigned. Designed and manufactured in the US.
Price: $36,000. Approximate number of US dealers: 70. Warranty: 10 years.
Manufacturer: VPI Industries, 77 Cliffwood Ave., #5D, Cliffwood, NJ…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog sources: Kuzma Stabi R turntable; 4Point tonearm; Clearaudio Panzerholz, Ortofon Verismo, VPI Shyla cartridges.
Preamplifiers: Shindo Allegro, Miyajima WO-1, Manley Steelhead RC phono preamplifier, Sculpture A Mini Nano SUT, Auditorium 23 SUT.
Power amplifier: Shindo Haut-Brion.
Loudspeakers: DeVore Fidelity Orangutan O/96, Volti Audio Razz.
Cables: Interconnects: Triode Wire Labs Spirit II (RCA), Analysis Plus Silver Apex (RCA), Shindo (RCA). Speaker: Analysis Plus Silver Apex Speaker (bananas). AC: Triode Wire Labs Obsession NCF.…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
While Technics certainly fired the starting pistol on the 21st century's fledgling direct-drive revolution, VPI was still quick out of the blocks with its belt-free HW-40 40th Anniversary. The Avenger Direct uses the same nonferrous motor design with its claimed 2.68Nm/s torque, bringing the 24lb (11kg) platter, complete with peripheral ring clamp, up…