Apart from delivering an uncanny level of silence and transparency, the #1 special thing Lab12's tube phono stage can do is allow users to fine-tune resistance, capacitance, and gain to create maximally effective loads for both moving coil and moving magnet cartridges. These diverse capabilities…
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On the front page of its owner's manual, Greek amplifier manufacturer Lab12 describes the Melto2 ($4995, footnote 1) as a "Remote Controlled, Fully Adjustable Phono Preamplifier." I'd describe it as a clear-speaking, fun-to-use, cartridge- and record-collector's dream. Plus: It's got tubes.
The Ortofon 2M line is familiar to my ears. I own a 2M Blue that once belonged to Art Dudley (RIP). My reference cartridge in studio is a 2M Bronze. (Its microline stylus is reputed to be so close to a cutting stylus that it's safe to play a lacquer with it—only once—before sending it out for plating.) The 2M Red has the same moving magnet engine as the 2M Blue, with a bonded elliptical stylus instead of a nude elliptical. The 2M Red has high output, at 5.5mV. The output level of the Audio-Technica AT-VM95C included on the SL-40CBT is 4mV (see later). So the first thing I listened for…
Whenever I hear a Tzar, my brain recites the words I spoke to Frank Schröder: "That's the best damn cartridge I've ever heard." But then everyone knows I speak in metaphors and flash hyperbole like a smile. What my brain meant by saying those words is that the Tzar's sound is so radically different than any other cartridge that I have nothing to compare it to. Audio-Technica's AT-ART1000 "Direct Power Stereo Cartridge" comes to mind as a possibility. It uses the same coils-near-the-stylus strategy, but it features a nude line-contact stylus and a boron cantilever. The Tzar uses a carbon-…
Every first love leaves a strong impression. Hopefully it's a good one. Those of us who are phonography-positive fondly remember our first good record playing system, the first turntable-cartridge combo that let the music turn us on. Maybe it was simple, maybe it was fussy, maybe it was unreliable—no matter, it had that special ability to bring the excitement, beauty, and humanity out of the vinyl grooves, through our audio systems, and into our souls.
For me, that first-loved turntable was a Technics SL-D2 semiautomatic direct drive (footnote 1). The cartridge was an Audio-Technica…
Studio Masters: Close-up on three of the seven producers/engineers participating in the Studio Confidential series. From, l-r: Elliot Scheiner, Sylvia Massy, Niko Bolas.
Producers and engineers are the human engines that drive and shape the sound of the recordings we know and love—not to mention the ones we've yet to hear. To get us closer to the music, so to speak, the organizers of Studio Confidential, a month-long series of events held at the Loreto Theater in the Sheen Center for Thought and Culture on Bleecker Street in New York City, have brought together seven of the best…
Studio Masters: The Magnificent Seven producers/engineers participating in the Studio Confidential series get behind the board. Top row, l-r: Jimmy Douglass, Frank Filipetti, George Massenberg, Chuck Ainlay. Bottom row, l-r: Elliot Scheiner, Sylvia Massy, Niko Bolas.
If you really want to know how your favorite albums came to be, you can't go wrong talking with the men and women who are in the studio day in and day out with the artists—i.e., the producers and engineers.
The organizers of Studio Confidential clearly agree. For a month-long series of events held at the…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Direct-drive, three-speed (33 1/3, 45, and 78rpm) manual turntable with digitally controlled coreless brushless DC motor, built-in RIAA preamplifier for high-output cartridges. Tonearm and Ortofon 2M Red cartridge included. Aluminum diecast platter: 11 51/64" (300mm) diameter, 2.78lb (1.26kg) including "unwoven fabric" turntable mat. Startup time: 0.7s to 33 1/3rpm (about 0.4 rotation); electronic braking. Wow and flutter: 0.025%. Tonearm: Static balance with sleeve bearing, 9 1/6" (230mm) effective length, 19/32" (15mm) overhang. Tracking error…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog source: Technics SL-1200MK5 turntable with KAB 3-speed mod, fluid damping and tonearm wiring; LP Gear The Vessel, Ortofon 2M Blue and 2M Red, Audio-Technica AT-VM95C phono cartridges.
Digital source: dCS Bartók APEX.
Preamplifiers: Benchmark LA-4 (line), Pro-Ject Phono Box RS2 (phono).
Amplifiers: Benchmark AHB2, Aragon 8004, McIntosh MA6500 (integrated).
Loudspeakers: EgglestonWorks Andra 5, Amphion One18.
Accessories: Butcherblock Acoustics rack, SME turntable cable, cables by Belden Canare, Mogami, etc.—Tom Fine
The tape duplication room at Recording The Masters, Avranches, France.
Rhino Records, Warner Music Group's back-catalog label, has jumped into the rarified niche of prerecorded reel-to-reel tapes. Under the Rhino High Fidelity brand, the first two titles were announced in October 2025: T. Rex's Electric Warrior and The Yes Album. Both are limited editions; no more than 500 tapes will be made and sold.
Rhino joins a surprisingly long list of companies currently producing reel tapes for sale to audiophiles. Retail prices are hundreds of dollars per album, and some are closer to $…
Photo: Don Hunstein, courtesy of Sony Music Ent.
Columbia Legacy has released Vol.18 of the Bob Dylan Bootleg Series. Through the Open Window covers the years 1956–1963. The collection is available as three physical sets: two-CD or four-LP "Highlights" versions that contain 42 tracks, and an eight-CD "Deluxe Edition Box Set" that contains 139 tracks and has a running time of 8 hours, 59 minutes. The "Highlights" package is available streaming at 24/192, but the other 97 tracks are only available in the big box. That big box also includes a 124-page hardback book containing full credits,…