Tonearm Reviews

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Art Dudley Listening Tonearm Reviews

Listening #194: Sorane ZA-12 tonearm

Art Dudley First Published: Feb 07, 2019 0 comments
Peter J. Walker (1916–2003), founder of Quad Electroacoustics and designer of some of the most well-regarded products in the history of domestic audio, famously believed that a properly designed audio-frequency amplifier should have no sound of its own. As for suggestions that his Quad II amplifier (1953–1971) sounded better than most, Walker was unmoved: "We designed our valve amplifier, manufactured it, put it on the market and never actually listened to it."
Analog Corner Phono Cartridge Reviews Tonearm Reviews

Analog Corner #281: Klaudio KD-ARM-AG12 tonearm and Ikeda & Tedeska phono cartridges

Michael Fremer First Published: Jan 01, 2019 0 comments
How do you like your tangential-tracking tonearm: with a captured air bearing? If so, a stationary bearing and moving rail—or a moving bearing and stationary rail? A hovercraft-style air bearing? Trolley-wheel or servo-mechanical bearing? Or pivoted, with some kind of offset at the pivot or the headshell—or both? In today's crowded market of analog playback, you can buy whatever type of tangential tracker you prefer, from Bergmann, Clearaudio, Kuzma, Reed, Schröder, Thales, and others.
Analog Corner Tonearm Reviews Turntable Reviews

Analog Corner #280: VPI Avenger Reference turntable, VPI Fatboy tonearm

Michael Fremer First Published: Dec 01, 2018 0 comments
Turntable manufacturer VPI Industries is about to celebrate its 40th anniversary. Despite analog playback's ups and downs (pun time), VPI has managed not only to survive but to prosper and grow, thanks to a smart product mix that includes high-value, wet-wash/vacuum-dry record-cleaning machines that perhaps took up the revenue slack when, in the mid-1990s, interest in new turntables dipped—but the vinyl faithful still had millions of dirty records to keep clean.
Analog Corner Tonearm Reviews Turntable Reviews

Analog Corner #279: Technics SL-1000R turntable, Swedish Analog Technologies CF1-09 tonearm

Michael Fremer First Published: Nov 01, 2018 0 comments
Technics' sudden decision, in October 2010, to stop making its iconic SL-1200 direct-drive turntable, then in its MK6 iteration, took vinyl fans by surprise. At the time, although sales of vinyl and turntables for home use were surging, their use in clubs was falling as DJs moved to the digits. According to Technics (a division of Panasonic), production of the SL-1200 was stopped not because professional sales dropped, but because the factory tooling for manufacturing them had worn out, and retooling wasn't cost-effective.
Analog Corner Phono Cartridge Reviews Tonearm Reviews

Analog Corner #278: Swedish Analog Technologies LM-09 tonearm; DS Audio Master1 optical cartridge

Michael Fremer First Published: Oct 01, 2018 0 comments
Despite one website's recent claim that "Vinyl's Revival Is Already Fading," Nielsen SoundScan recently announced that vinyl sales for the first half of 2018 were up 19.2% over 2017, led by Jack White's Boarding House Reach, with 37,000 copies sold so far (and we know that N/S misses a great deal of the action). While on the West Coast looking for business, a friend of mine who's about to open a major vinyl-pressing plant on the East Coast was told by everyone that they're experiencing "double-digit vinyl growth." No one was seeing a slowdown ahead.
Analog Corner Tonearm Reviews Turntable Reviews

Analog Corner #275: Bergmann Audio Galder turntable & Odin tonearm

Michael Fremer First Published: Jul 01, 2018 0 comments
Bergmann Audio (footnote 1) launched its first turntable—the Sindre, which featured an integrated tonearm—in 2008. The Sindre's acrylic platter and tangential-tracking tonearm both floated on air bearings; it had an outboard motor controller, a separate air pump for the air bearings, and cost $21,000.
Art Dudley Listening Tonearm Reviews

Listening #182: Audio-Creative GrooveMaster II tonearm

Art Dudley First Published: Jan 30, 2018 0 comments
In my youth, I unwittingly trained myself in the art of deferred pleasure. I did this by investing my allowance in every mail-order product that caught my eye—things I saw in the back pages of the magazines and comic books I loved—then settling in for a wait that always seemed interminable. This happened most often in summer months, when extra chores brought extra cash, and when school didn't interfere with keeping vigil at the mailbox.
Analog Corner Tonearm Reviews Turntable Reviews

Analog Corner #269: TechDAS Air Force III turntable and Graham Engineering Phantom III tonearm

Michael Fremer First Published: Jan 01, 2018 0 comments
It was great fun having our editorial coordinator, Jana Dagdagan, shoot a video profile of me in my listening room. As I write this, it's had more than 88,000 views. While the ratio of thumbs up to thumbs down has remained consistently around 10:1, some of the negative comments, particularly about our industry and about this magazine, do enrage me.
Art Dudley Listening Tonearm Reviews

Listening #180: Swissonor TA10 tonearm

Art Dudley First Published: Nov 20, 2017 0 comments
Everything you know is wrong.—The Firesign Theatre


The Swissonor TA10, a contemporary tonearm designed for the Thorens TD 124 turntable (1959–1970), challenged me to set aside some of the things I thought I knew about phonography. On at least one of those counts, it succeeded.


Handmade in Switzerland and modeled on the Thorens TP 14 tonearm of the 1960s, the TA10 ($3990) improves on its predecessor with an effective length of 240mm, which Swissonor says is the longest that can be achieved with a stock TD 124 armboard (the TP 14's effective length was only 210mm), and replaces the non-universal plug and socket of the TP 14's removable headshell with the more common SME standard found on most contemporary headshells, pickup heads, and tonearms.

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